CHURCH Stretton suffered an agonising loss by a single run in a Shropshire League Division Four thriller at Madeley seconds.

Lateness meant Stretton had to field the first nine overs with eight men and the first 20 overs with ten – and Madeley openers Jack Loftus (68) and Jamie Lloyd (64) took advantage to build a 146 stand.

From there, though, Stretton put the brakes on, restricting Madeley to 238-7 as skipper Peter Lee, Saif Khalid and Keith Yapp took two wickets apiece.

In reply, Lee (46), Charlie Reece (39), Khalid (36) and James Evans (36) gave Stretton a great chance of victory with some brilliant boundary-hitting.

But, with Stretton needing just three off the last two balls to win, a mis-call from the umpire – who gave one run instead of two – and a last-ball run-out gave Madeley a dramatic win.

In the same division, Bishops Castle lost by 65 runs at Trysull and Seisdon despite Caitlin Perry’s four-wicket haul.

Perry took 4-15 to help restrict the hosts to 174-9 despite opener Usman Bari’s 70 but Castle were skittled for 109 in reply, Tom Evans (20) top-scoring.