Old Merchant Taylors' suffered an agonising 20-run defeat at Old Cheltonians in the first round of the Cricketer Cup on Sunday.

Having won the toss and elected to bat, Old Cheltonians lost their opener to Oli Wilkin in the first over.

However, despite the ball passing the bat on numerous occasions, there were no further wickets in the first hour-and-a-half of play.

Chris Sandbach played the anchor role with a fine innings, particularly when the ball was moving around early on, accumulating runs at a steady rate, and finishing on 101 not out.

New OMT captain James Corbett picked up a couple of wickets in the middle of the innings, but this was not enough to prevent Cheltonians scoring 140 in their final 20 overs.

Whilst OMT never allowed their heads to drop in the field, 48 extras, including 41 wides, meant that they had to chase a far larger total of 268 for four, than it might have been.

In reply, Wilkin made a quick-fire 25 before being bowled, inexplicably without playing a shot. But Sohan Modi (34) and Adam Brand (63) then shared in a partnership of 90 for the third wicket which kept OMT in a good position to launch an attack in the final overs.

Helped by a cameo from debutant Ashil Shah, who contributed 28, and then some fine hitting from Corbett, who finished with 48, OMT remained in with a chance of victory until the very final overs.

Ultimately though, the task proved beyond them and they ended up 20 runs short. OMT team manager Philip Newfield said: “We come away from Cheltenham hugely frustrated and disappointed by the relatively narrow margin of our defeat, but by conceding 48 extras of which 41 were from 26 wide deliveries, we faced a total that proved too demanding to chase down.”