The good news for Mundford is that their destiny is still in their own hands - but the level of performance has to improve threefold for them to even be in with a chance of survival.

The good news for Mundford is that their destiny is still in their own hands - but the level of performance has to improve threefold for them to even be in with a chance of survival.

After a fantastic win the previous weekend, Mundford's world fell apart with a dismal display against Kirkley.

It all started so brightly with A Bailey and R Smeed bowling their best opening spell of the season, with Bailey even more miserly than usual with four wickets and only conceding 12 runs.

His partner Smeed bowled with pace and swing, whilst grabbing a wicket to leave Kirkley on 61 for five.

That's when Mundford's luck ran out, with dropped catches once again rearing their ugly head.

Time and time again Kirkley were let off the hook. To be fair, Kirkley's sixth-wicket stand between Block and Hayes took full advantage of Mundford's misgivings and piled on the runs, with a partnership of 122.

Mundford's heads were visibly down but why should they have been? One wicket was all it needed to get back into the game.

In the 46th over, a 'caught behind' was controversially given not out and, as is usually the case in cricket, their opponents took full advantage and rubbed salt into the wounds by smacking the final two balls for six and four.

Mundford walked off the pitch, heads bowed, but a total of 215 was not out of their reach by any means.

After being in such a good position and letting it slip, Mundford were determined to get off to a good solid start but once again an early wicket put them on the back foot.

For the opening 20 overs, it was painful to watch, a slow run rate, missed opportunities to score and wickets falling regularly.

Several players got starts, M Gooderham (20), R Yates (18) and P Brassett 16 but none could push their scores to anything substantial.

It wasn't until Smeed was joined by M Allsop that Mundford felt they could, just maybe, mount a challenge to Kirkley's score.

Smeed had started slowly, due to loss of wickets, but then started to get into his stride.

He and Allsop got Mundford back into the game with the latter playing his best innings of a frustrating season.

Smeed departed for 26 but this brought D Keeler to the crease for only his third game of the season.

Rather than take a back seat, he joined the big hitting by scoring 19.

Just as Mundford were dreaming of an improbable victory, Allsop was caught off a high full toss which, if it was over waist high, should have been called a no ball but the call was not forthcoming.

The chance of a win had been lost at that exact point as Kirkley wrapped up a 27-run win.