ANDOVER will look to get their promotion hopes back on track on Saturday, when Southern League Division One leaders Hook and Newnham Basics are the visitors.

Last summer when these sides met at London Road, the home side won a thriller by four wickets as Matt Knight hit the winning runs as they won with four balls to spare.

Last Saturday, the Nordlock Sponsored Andover made the long journey south to visit an overcast New Milton in the next round of the Southern League but came up second best against an experienced home team.

Skipper Matt Hooper elected to bat first on challenging pitch with clouds threatening overhead.

Hooper's worst fears were confirmed as Glyn Treagus, Lewis McManus and Harri Williams were all dismissed without scoring by New Milton captain George Watts.

Matt Knight (20) and Charlie Ayers attempted to negotiate the conditions and put on a watchful 50 run partnership.

After Knight was caught and bowled by Wilmore, Ayers found further support through Nathan Birks (20) who launched some lusty blows as he looked to launch a counter attack.

Ayers reached his 50 but then lost Birks who edged behind with the score on 100 and the town side were struggling to reach a competitive total. Things went from bad to worse for Andover as a Dan Loader hat-trick blasted away the majority of the lower order.

Andover reached 140 purely on the back of Ayers who hit some lusty blows, a score that they had a chance of defending.

New Milton's openers set about the chase in a dogged fashion, making Andover's new ball pairing of Mike Adams and Aiden Jansen worked hard for the breakthrough.

It was Adams who struck removing Dan Adlem for six and giving Andover an early wicket a sniff at victory.

The town side picked up further wickets of Steve Watts (12) and Campbell Golding (18) thanks to Richard Taylor and debutant Morgan Vanadel which left the New Milton innings finely poised at 49-3.

However this was as good as things got for the town side. Under increasingly brighter conditions, veteran Lee Beck (49 not out) begun to get stuck into the Andover attack.

He hit some lusty blows to unorthodox areas of the field to take the momentum away from Andover. Matt Hooper struck to remove Alfie Hussey (17) but Ryan Beck (31 not out) joined his brother to seal a six wicket win for New Milton.

On Sunday, Andover lost their home T20 Cup first round game against Hythe and Dibden.

The visitors posted 124-7 with Jansen (2-15), Adams (2-23) and Ayers (2-22) the chief wicket takers.

Andover were bowled out for 108 as Matt Hopper top scored with 38.