FOR the second year running, Basingstoke and North Hants suffered an opening day Home Counties League defeat by Slough.

Last year in Berkshire it was by nine wickets and on Saturday at May's Bounty by seven wickets.

Slough wrapped up victory in the final over - thanks to an unbeaten century stand between Steven Naylor (74) and Bobby Sher (57) as they passed their 209 target.

The visitors won the toss and elected to field first and it soon paid dividends as opener Ian Maynard was bowled by Naylor for a duck after two balls.

His opening partner, Lee Nurse, was the next man out for 16. Ross Hunter (31) and Dean Nurse (30) then put on 43 for the third wicket before Hunter was bowled to make it 80-3.

A middle order collapse saw Nurse, Ray Pavesi (8) and Scott Dyer (0) all out with just 21 runs added to the total.

Leon Nurse (19) and Basingstoke's top scorer Jon Govett steadied the ship with the best stand of the match, a seventh-wicket partnership of 44 to move the score to 145.

David Holland (0) and Keith Harris (7) both went cheaply before an excellent last-wicket stand of 41 between Govett and Chris Chandler (16) moved the score to 209 after 63.3 overs.

Govett remained unbeaten on 57, an innings which included eight fours in his first-ever Home Counties League half-century.

In reply, Slough got off to a good start, moving on to 42 before Holland struck with his first ball in Home Counties cricket as Lee Nurse snapped up a catch off Gulzheei Khan.

Russell Lane (40) and Ali Ahmed (14) both fell to Ray Pavesi as the score moved on to 101-3.

After that, Basingstoke were unable to take another wicket but they made Slough sweat a bit as the Berkshire side, runners-up last season, could not claim victory until the first ball of the final over.

Keith Harris, Basingstoke captain for the day, said: "We did well to get to 209 and set them some sort of target but we were always at a disadvantage, bowling with a wet ball for most of the Slough innings."

He added: "We will take away the positives from the batting of Dean Nurse, Ross Hunter, Jon Govett and Chris Chandler and also it was good to see David Holland get a wicket as we try to blood new players into the side."