TENBURY’S promotion hopes in the Worcestershire League are hanging by the slimmest of threads.

Defeat by West Malvern at Penlu last weekend appears to have inflicted a terminal blow on their quest to finish in the top two in Division Five.

Though it was only their fourth defeat of the campaign, the result means that West Malvern (264 points) have now leapfrogged over Tenbury (257) into third spot in the table behind promotion favourites Astwood Bank 3rd (304) and Stourport 3rd (292).

Astwood moved to the summit after becoming the first team to defeat Stourport last weekend, a bizarre game seeing the table-toppers bowled out for 47 and Astwood lose eight wickets in knocking off the runs.

Tom Rawlings (50) and opener Tom Pugh (40) were the mainstays behind Tenbury’s 218-9 off 50 overs, David Hunt also weighing in with 28 and Mark Yarranton 27.

But West Malvern’s Will Lloyd then set about pacing his side’s chase, an unbeaten 89 seeing the visitors home on 222-7 with just five balls to spare after they took 17 off the 48th over bowled by teenager Henry Anton.

Tenbury skipper Steve Giles, whose side visit new leaders Astwood Bank this weekend in their penultimate fixture, admitted: “We can still mathematically make the top two but it is going to take a miracle now.”

Availability problems meant that Tenbury 2nd only had eight players but they maintained their promotion bid by winning at West Malvern 2nd, and they stay tucked into second place in the 2nd XI Division Five table, 18 points ahead of third-placed Stourbridge 4th.

Ben Thompson (36), Ian Taylor (34) and Adrian Edwards (30) led the way as Tenbury reached 182-6 off 45 overs, and West Malvern, despite some dogged late-order resistance, were bowled out for 160.

Edwards did some early damage to decimate Malvern’s top-order with 4-41 and both Jamie Farrar (2-52) and Taylor (3-40) provided some excellent back-up.