LEIGH-ON-SEA face two games to save their season in Shepherd Neame Essex League Division Two following a costly defeat against Harlow Town.

Facing the side directly above them in the standings, Leigh reduced their opponents to 169 in 40 overs – with Shaun Alderson’s 57 and Jibran Azam’s 42 the only significant contributions for the home side.

Paul Humphries bowled an excellent spell and closed with 6-42 in just more than 14 overs.

Joe Sexton took three wickets for Leigh, who are now 22 points adrift of third from bottom Horndon-on-the-Hill.

Leigh lost Jon Edwards early on and, after a slow start, looked comfortable at 92/2 – with James Pettitt (45) and Dean Waller (38) doing the damage.

But the rest of the order failed to spark and only 28 more runs were added as Leigh collapsed to 118 all out.

And captain Sexton says things need to change quickly if they are to salvage their season.

“At halfway we felt pretty confident but they bowled really well in the middle sections and that changed the game,” he said. “The ball turned and bounced and it was a tough loss for us.

“The onus is on the batsmen, we need to get in and then push on. If we can turn 20/30 into a 70 then the result could be very different.

“We are relying on a few other teams getting points and we need to win our last two matches with 25 points and not 20 points now.

“This is the first time we will have the same 11 available for a consecutive week and that has been the problem. Because of this standard people can’t put everything into it and they have lives to live and that is how it is. It happens to other teams but they deal with it better than we do.”

Wickford have turned their season around for the better and are now just 10 points off the automatic promotion places.

They beat South Woodford by just nine runs, having accrued 172 with the bat.

Chris Westwood (39), Dean Etchells (44), Ronnie McKenna (28) and Connor Etchells (27) scored the runs to hand Wickford a defendable score.

And but for the efforts of Bradley Copper (84), South Woodford’s challenge would have expired much earlier.

Connor Etchells (4-39), his brother Dean, Chirag Desai and Huzaifa Umer were inspired with the ball.

Mid-table Old Southendian & Southchurch were well beaten by champions elect Loughton.

Old Southendian won the toss and scored 203/7 in their 50 overs, with Ahmed Khawaja (68) top scoring ahead of Ali Raza (44).

Loughton lost just three wickets in their reply.