A WELL-TIMED blast from Wednesbury’s Tushar Saha condemned Stourbridge to a six-wicket defeat.

The overseas star hit 102 from 132 balls as the visitors recovered from 107-5 to chase down Stour’s total of 210.

Stourbridge remain third in Birmingham League Division Three but have lost ground on the top two Oswestry and Penkridge.

Skipper Richard Bradley won the toss and chose to bat despite possible gremlins in the pitch after a week of heavy rain.

Openers Matt Bradley and Steve Game (61) started well, putting on 49 for the first wicket, before Bradley was out for 17.

Game was joined by Jitesh Patel and they added 51 for the second wicket but both fell lbw to Harish Patel, who ended with figures of 4-85.

Stour continued to score steadily with skipper Bradley making the next largest contrbution of 39 as they finished on 210-7 from 55 overs.

The hosts took time to make the breakthrough as Wednesbury openers Craig Cartwright (24) and Chris Pickering (13) began steadily.

However, when the first wicket did fall with the score on 34, a second fell straight away.

And when James Winders had Adam Shermer caught, the visitors were 78-4.

Saha and Jamie Green (20) added 29 for the fifth wicket but Stour would still have fancied their chances.

But Saha had other ideas, increasing his aggression as the innings progressed.

Ranvir Singh (20 not out) held up the other end as Stour’s bowlers could find no answer to Saha.

When he was out, just seven more runs were needed to win and Patel struck an unbeaten eight for the win.