Hampstead’s disappointing Premier Division season ended in a defeat away at Twickenham, leaving the 2013 champions sixth in the final standings.

Hampstead’s stand-in skipper Ben Scott was asked to field, and second-placed Twickenham batted strongly to build up an imposing total.

Rhys Davies notched 86 and Simon Dunning hit 59 off 38 balls, while Carlos Nunes hit 50 off 46 – and Parminder Singh plundered 38 off 28, with Arunjit Sandhu (23) also contributing.

Liam Hughes was the pick of the Hampstead bowlers but the hosts racked up 334 before being bowled out after 52.2 overs.

Hampstead made a good fist of the reply, with opener George Adair notching 50 off 42 balls and Mubasher Hassan striking 54 off 45, while Freddie Fairhead smashed an unbeaten 58 off 45.

Archie Fellowes (37) and Ragheb Aga (30) also weighed in, but Hampstead fell 49 runs short at 285 off 52.2 overs.

The chairman of the club’s playing committee, Nick Brown, said: “There was certainly plenty of entertainment for the spectators, I think it was comfortably the highest aggregate game in the Middlesex County League this season.

“We were certainly not helped when the new ball bounced off the back of a bus following a wide and couldn’t be found.

“The replacement ball was probably 40 overs old and Twickenham, who are a very aggressive batting team anyway, took full advantage and hammered it everywhere.

“We are disappointed to lose any game, but it was a pretty good chase and, in fact at 210-4 with 28 overs left, I think we were arguably favourites. But it wasn’t to be and credit to Twickenham, they kept attacking and their spinners bowled well.

“The club had a big end of season party on Saturday night, which was great. Regardless of us not defending our titles we weren’t going to linger on that. The club is in great shape and I have no doubt that we will be back in force in 2015.”