Brondesbury suffered a narrow one-wicket defeat on their return to the Premier Division, despite Thomas Kopelman’s five-for.

Rain meant that only two of the 15 matches in the whole of the Middlesex County League were completed – and one of them came in a low-scoring encounter at Twickenham.

Simon Butler’s 20 was the top score for Brondesbury as they perished on 86. And, although Kopelman (5-32) and Jamie Odell (3-24) fought back with the ball to set up a close finish, Twickenham’s Clint McCabe hit an unbeaten 51 as the hosts clawed their way past the target for victory.

Twickenham won the toss and inserted Brondesbury, who lost opener James Overy (7) early on. Hugh Gimber (18) and Butler (20) took their side to 47-1, but that became 47-3 as they both fell in quick succession.

Jordan Bethel came in and notched 15, moving the score to 62-3, but he was the third and final Brondesbury batsman to make it into double figures and the away team lost their last seven men for just 24 runs.

Palash Joshi (2) was followed by Ravi Patel and Bethel, while Tommy Ricketts (5), Robert Nelson (4), Kopelman (2) and Odell offered scant resistance at the tail as Brondesbury were skittled after 37.2 overs.

It was a very attainable target but Twickenham also struggled with the bat, with Kopelman removing Eugene Berger (4) and Odell having Babar Choudhary (4) caught by Gimber, leaving the hosts 11-2.

Kopelman then bowled Carlos Nunes (10) and Odell dismissed Rhys Davies (2) before trapping David Russell lbw for a duck to put Twickenham in real trouble at 21-5.

By this time, McCabe was at the crease. He kept losing partners as Kopelman had Brian Kulasena (4), Rashid Mullahzadah (7) and Parminder Singh (0) caught while Arunjit Sandhu (3) was run out by Joshi at 83-9 – but McCabe passed his half century as Twickenham reached 90-9 after 26.1 overs.

Elsewhere in the Premier Division, Hampstead’s home match against Teddington was abandoned with the visitors at 103-2 after 32 overs. Mubasher Hassan claimed both wickets for the hosts.

The chairman of Hampstead’s playing committee, Nick Brown, said: “Obviously we are disappointed that the weather intervened on Saturday.

“However, Steve Clark and Ragheb Aga were both unavailable and Teddington had got themselves into a decent position.

“Certainly, with the way the rain rules work, there really wasn’t any other alternative but to call the game when we did. As it turned out, it rained heavily not long afterwards anyway.

“Ragheb will be back next Saturday, otherwise we will be unchanged and look forward very much to going to North Middlesex.

“I think they are a club that is really going in the right direction. They now have each of their top four XIs in the highest league that they could be in - something only matched by Richmond, so they must be doing a lot of things right and we respect that.”

Meanwhile, in Division Three, South Hampstead’s trip to Wembley was also abandoned with the hosts on 39-2 after 17.4 overs. Muhammed Umar Asif (1-11) and Majid Akram (1-12) produced the two dismissals.