Radlett’s hopes of making the play-offs took another blow as they lost to Potters Bar by 130 runs.

The Cobden Hill-based cricket club are now sixth, 26 points behind Welwyn Garden City with just five games to go.

On the other hand, this third successive victory for Potters Bar catapulted them to third in the division, level on points with North Mymms in second and only three behind league leaders Totteridge Millhillians.

Yet another dry and dusty surface at The Walk greeted the teams and Steve Gale, deputising for skipper James Scott, had no hesitation in batting first after winning the toss.

And they made a decent start, putting on 50 inside 13 overs, but it was clear that taking pace off the ball and letting the pitch work its wonders was the way forward.

Enter Muhammed Adil Zareef who took three wickets on his way to 3-64, claiming the wickets of Harrison Palmer, Thilan Walallawita and Zawar Hussain.

Anthony Hill also ended up with three wickets but Gale and Kamran Younas made life extremely difficult for Radlett, and helped Bar post 263-8.

It was an imposing total but the seam bowling of Jigar Metha made sure Radlett wouldn’t get close.

He took the opening three wickets of Chris Arul, Fraser Crawford and Kabir Toor to leave Radlett on 22-3 and would eventually finish with 4-27.

He was ably assisted by Paul McGee (2-18) and Luke Chapman (2-32) while Walallawita and Teddy Duke took one each.

Radlett did battle away in the middle order with Archit Goenka hitting 30 and both Joe Cooke and Zareef getting 22.

However, they were all out for 133 after 42 overs.

Harpenden continue to battle against relegation and their latest game against high-flying Totteridge Millhillians ended in a five-wicket defeat.

They batted first and finished all out for 188.

Openers Gregg Cooper and Nick Lamb both scored 34 as did number four James Latham but they suffered in the middle order and only a late flurry from Andrew Neal (27) and Gus Laws-Mather (21) brought the score up.

Arthur Garrett managed 3-66 in reply but they didn’t come close to nabbing the victory and Totteridge wrapped things up in the 47th over.