Bury St Edmunds captain, Sean Park, still believes that his side can engineer an escape from the clutches of relegation, despite failing to win for the 12th time from 13 starts in the East Anglian Premier League , at home to Horsford on Saturday.

Basement dwellers Bury were in the ascendancy for most of the day, at the Victory Ground, but poor fielding was to prove their downfall as the Norfolk visitors held on for a draw.

Having made a respectable 206 all out, Bury had their opponents staring down the barrel at 123 for six, but they could not finish off the job as Horsford dug in to end on 185 for seven off 61 overs.

“It was very frustrating,” confessed Bury skipper, Park.

“We are not playing terrible cricket, but we just can’t put in that complete performance at the moment. We are getting it right in two of the three facets of the game. Our batting and bowling was good on Saturday, but we were let down by our fielding.

“We didn’t do well enough in the field, dropping far too many catches. We dropped (Stephan) Marillier four times, with me and (Daron) Cruickshank both dropping him in the slips. They were not easy chances, but we are senior cricketers who should be holding onto these sort of catches.

“We still had them at 123 for six, with 20 overs to go, but they made no effort to try and get the runs, and it’s always very difficult to bowl a team out when they are not trying to score runs.

“Their priority was not to lose the match, because they are down near the bottom as well.

“I can understand that – them being happy with the draw – but if they had won then they would have pulled themselves clear.”

Even though they have only won once this season, Bury are only 32 points adrift of second-from-bottom Burwell, and 34 behind third-from-bottom Norwich.

“We can still stay up. The gap is still manageable,” continued Park.

“There are still nine games to go, but we might need to end up with five wins.”

Unfortunately, South African all-rounder Park will not be available for Bury’s next two matches, against Copdock (home) and Frinton (away).

The young quartet of Dominic Manthorpe (49), Josh Cantrell (35), Alex Oxley (25) and Alfie Marston (25) all batted well for Bury, but Marillier (53) and skipper Ryan Findlay (35no off 96 balls) denied the hosts a much-needed win.