BURY St Edmunds missed out on a glorious opportunity to close the gap on Swardeston at the top of the Gibbs Denley East Anglian Premier League on Saturday as both the division's top two sides lost.

BURY St Edmunds missed out on a glorious opportunity to close the gap on Swardeston at the top of the Gibbs Denley East Anglian Premier League on Saturday as both the division's top two sides lost.

While top-of-the-table Swardeston went down to a shock defeat at bottom club Fakenham, Bury were unable to take advantage as they too lost at Godmanchester.

Bury's first defeat of the season means that Godmanchester leapfrog the Suffolk side into second, throwing the title wide open into a three-horse race.

With the dry pitch conducive to turn, Bury missed spinners Tom Huggins, who was away on a coaching course, and Paul Grayson, who will now be unavailable for most of the remainder of the season, following his promotion to head coach at Essex.

After Godmanchester finished on 220 all out, with Andrew Tweedie taking five for 29, Godmanchester's spinner Praneeth Jayasundera was able to make the most of the conditions in reply, producing a devastating spell of four wickets in seven balls on his way to figures of five for 40.

Bury eventually finished 102 runs short. Vice-captain Tweedie said: “It's never nice to lose, but Godmanchester played some good cricket.

“He (Jayasundera) exploited the conditions well and got it in the right areas, but we missed Tom (Huggins) and Paul (Grayson) who, between the two of them could have made a bit of difference on that wicket.

“It's a mixed feeling now because while it would have been great to win and push Swardeston, we are also quite relieved that they didn't get a good result. This weekend has just made the league that little bit more exciting.

“We have made our job that little bit harder, but fortunately Swradeston didn't make it even harder than that.

“We have got to knuckle down now, we have Horsford next week and that should be a nice game for us to bounce back.

“The guys are a bit shocked and disappointed at the moment but they will be really up for it next week.”

Elsewhere, Swardeston's shock defeat to Fakenham spelled more danger for Clacton, who slipped further towards danger with a narrow 13 run loss to Horsford.

Batting first, Horsford scored 223 for six, Perera top scoring with 95. In reply, a superb 119 from Indika De Saram was supported only by a 54 from captain Martin Smith and a 20 from Grosvenor, with no one else reaching double figures.

Other results saw Great Witchingham beat Cambridge Granta by 35 runs and Vauxhall Mallards win by four wickets against Norwich.