Himley's nasty habit of losing their opening Birmingham League Premier Division fixture continued for a fourth consecutive season on Saturday.

The Stourbridge Road outfit suffered a four-wicket defeat away at Walmley in their first game of the season.

Without their overseas star TP Singh and on the back of the news that wicket keeper Jagbhir Dhillon will be missing for the entire season the encounter was always going to be tricky.

Batting first, Himley made a bright start and were in a strong position at 70- 1 with Dan Bassett (35) and Nitesh Patel (21) looking good on a tricky early season wicket.

But as soon as they were dismissed the middle and lower order struggled as they were eventually dismissed for only 115.

In reply the hosts the struggled over the line with four wickets to spare with returning Dave Willis (3-45) and Tim Heap (2-29) bowling well.

Captain Greg Wright said: "Unfortunately for us is this is a familiar position we keep finding ourselves in after the first day of the season.

"We have now lost our opening fixture for the last four seasons and It's not ideal, but unlike other campaigns there are some positives to take with us.

"I thought our fielding was excellent as well as the bowling from Dave and Tim.

"It was also good to see Dan and Nitesh bat so well it's just a pity we weren't able to build on that."

This weekend Himley have back to back home games.

On Saturday they will host a much-fancied Knowle and Dorridge side who started the season with an emphatic 191-run win over West Bromwich Dartmouth after bowling them out for only 27.

This will be followed by a visit from near-neighbours Penn in the Staffs Cup on Sunday.

Himley will be bolstered by the return of Singh and former wicket-keeper Tony Cooke who has agreed to return to action while the club search for a replacement wicket-keeper.

Stourbridge firsts hopes of building upon their opening day success in Division One of the Worcestershire Crusader League were dashed after their encounter away at Eastnor was called off due to the wet weather earlier in the week.

The seconds were at home to Pedmore and after being put into bat scored 250 in the allocated 50 overs.

The main contributor was U17s star opener Josh Banks who scored 121.

The century partnership between Banks and Greg Jones (56) was an indication of the depth of the young talent the club has nurtured.

In reply the Pedmore openers were met with a cordon of slips and close fielders. The persistence with aggressive field settings throughout the Pedmore innings paid off as wickets fell at regular intervals. Captain Mikesh Patel claimed four wickets backed by Matt Bradley the young pace man bought back to the clean up the tail to see the visitors dismissed for 123.

The thirds hosted Claverley and bowled them out for 114, Junaed Afzal taking 3 for 21 and Alex Biddle chipping in at the end claimed further three. Stourbridge took 37 overs to reach the visitors score.

Biddle also had a great day with the bat as he scored 56.

The icing on the cake came from the fourths as they claimed an easy victory away to Claverley. Peter Griffiths, a new recruit to Stourbridge showed the young team how to build an innings as he accumulated match winning 56.

The home batsmen found the Stourbridge duo Peter Day and Neil Gregory claiming four wickets each.

Following last week's promising result at Worcester Nomads, Oldswinford recorded their first win back in Division One at home to Pershore.

In a nail-biting encounter, victory was ensured off the penultimate ball to boost the home sides confidence early in the season.

Batting first, Pershore were resticted to 161 all out thanks to a fine spell of bowling by Seb Soukup with 4-37 and spinner James Holloway with 3-53.

After a steady start, with openers Dave Hayward and James Holloway (55) putting on 84, Oldswinford began losing wickets at all the wrong times and went into the final over needing 10 runs to win.Young all-rounders Tom Blunt and Soukup showed maturity beyond their years to gather the runs in five balls and secure a three wicket win. This Saturday Oldswinford travel to Redditch.

Netherton sit bottom of Worcestershire Crusader League Division One after they suffered a heavy nine-wicket defeat at home to Redditch.

Netherton have now lost their opening two fixtures sin the top-flight following last season's promotion.

Batting first the hosts were restricted to 130-9 but the visitors cruised to victory.

They will be looking for an upturn in fortunes this Saturday when they travel to the War Memorial to face rivals Stourbridge (1.30pm start).

In Division Three, Hagley firsts entertained Wormelow and despite a bad week of weather managed to get the ground fit for play.

Wormelow elected to bowl first and Hagley looked comfortable despite an early run-out. After being out first ball on debut last week Neil Hurst hit an entertaining 51 but lost two partners in the process. After Hurst was well caught, skipper Joe Lennon continued with a gritty 56 but after his dismissal by Chris Parry (5-54) Hagley fell apart and were dismissed for 164.

Opening bowlers John Porter (3-19) and Jack Baker (2-32) again kept things quiet to begin with.

Wormelow reached 109-3 and were looking like easing to victory with Herbert (71) and Evans (24) at the crease. But Porter returned to break the partnership by dismissing Evans, and then Jez Trinham (4-52) removed the middle order including the crucial wicket of Herbert. Porter wrapped things up with the last two wickets, with Wormelow all out for 140 in the penultimate over.

Captain Joe Lennon said: "After another disappointing batting display, we bowled tightly and did well to win the game but we need the top order to start batting in partnerships if we are to do well this year."

Poor run: Netherton's Hasan Qaumi goes down the ground in Saturday's disappointing defeat to Redditch.