It was a bad day in the Herts Cricket League Premier Division for North Mymms, Old Owens and Potters Bar - as all three lost.

For Potters Bar, a second successive defeat has sent spiralling from the top of the table down to fourth.

The latest reverse came at home to West Herts by 24 runs.

The Watford-based visitors made 297-8 at The Walk, although a sedate start and two wickets gave the home side plenty of confidence.

However, Callum Taylor (96) and Arjun Patel (84) batted beautifully, putting on 176 for the third wicket.

That coupled with a couple of rapid innings from Lewis Koch (30) and Lee Tyrrell (47) gave West Herts their imposing total.

Jigar Mehta, Luke Chapman and Thilan Walallawita each got two wickets.

Bar had a decent start though, Steve Gale and James Seward putting on 116, the latter finally going one ball after completing his 50.

Three overs later Gale followed him with 61 and Bar still needed 172 to win at nigh on nine runs an over.

Reece Hussain did his best with 45, as did Ashen Kavinda (38) and Walallawita (30), but the loss of Anmol Maheshram and Callum Lloyd in the 47th over all but ended their hopes.

Potters Bar's next game is away to neighbours North Mymms, who are one place above them after their second defeat of the season, away to Harpenden.

This one saw another huge score from the side batting first, Harpenden getting to 368 before being bowled out in the last over.

The main two were Cole Briggs and Olly Batchelor, who came together after 14 overs with the score on 72-2 and promptly bashed 139 in the next 18 set of sixes.

In fact the top six all performed well, the lowest score from any of them being 31, and it was only in the latter stages that wickets began to tumble more freely.

Rhys Wynne got three of them while Richard Oxley and Sabarish Ganesh picked up two each.

In contrast, the North Mymms batting line-up struggled to find any rhythm and only one managed to go above 30, skipper Nesan Jeyaratnam.

He made 59 but was out in the 30th over, trapped leg before by Ashley Sivarajah.

That made the score 150-6 and was the beginning of the end, arriving a little more than six overs later with Mymms 205 runs short.

Old Owens meanwhile went down by 139 runs at home to unbeaten league leaders Totteridge Millhillians.

The visitors got to 251-9 in their 50 overs, having been put into bat, opener Jon Miles setting them on their way with 80.

Stephen Williams tried his utmost to keep them in check, finishing with 4-52 from his 10 overs, while Jake Wickham got two wickets in the early going.

Any hopes of a challenge in reply though crumbled in the early going as Owens lost two wickets in the second over, with four departing by the time 17 overs had been completed, all for the meagre total of 46.

And the miserly bowling continued as the hosts were all out in 39 overs for just 112.

Only three made it to double figures and only one, Jack Timms, made it beyond 13. He would be finally out for 30, made from 75 deliveries. 

As a result Owens are seventh and face a trip to West Herts on Saturday.