South Hampstead captain Leroy Shepherd feels his side need to avoid complacency and lapses of concentration at the crease if they are to bring their away form into line with their perfect home record.

SH have won all four of their Division Three league clashes at Milverton Road – the latest coming on Saturday in a five-wicket victory over Bessborough, which took them three places up the table into third spot.

However, they have also lost each of their three games on the road – and, as they prepare to visit league leaders Brentham this weekend, Shepherd wants to see an improvement.

“There’s a couple of things we can look at,” said the skipper. “Of the three games we’ve lost, apart from the first one [against MTSSC], we’ve only lost on narrow margins.

“I just think we need to focus more on the way we organise ourselves when it comes to the batting part of it, because we’ve managed to bowl teams out pretty cheaply but then haven’t chased the runs down, which is disappointing.

“It’s about maintaining batting partnerships and just keeping focused in the real serious time in the games, because sometimes we lapse because we think we might be doing too well, or we give up on certain things.

“What I’ve seen from the team is that, when we’re away from home, our biggest challenge is chasing the runs down.

“We think it’s down to bowling too well, coming off thinking the game is over, then getting good starts when we’re batting, and everybody relaxes.

“Basically the brain shuts off, nobody concentrates, so it’s just keeping the concentration level going until that game is over.”

Shepherd added: “Over the past couple of weeks we’ve been a bit disappointed with our league position. We strongly believe the three games we’ve lost, we should have won them. But we’re all positive about how well we’ve moved up the table.

“Promotion is very much on the cards and we’re moving in the right direction. I think where we are in the table reflects where we’re sitting, in third.

“We’re level on points with Winchmore Hill but third place reflects how good the team is – in that zone – and where we should be heading. It’s a sense of relief for me.

“We’re very confident that we can go to Brentham and at least take four or five points off them.”

Touqeer Ahmad (3-22), Karthik Jagannathan (2-6) and Avnish Patel (2-23) performed well with the ball as South Hampstead inserted Bessborough and bowled them out for 99 on Saturday.

James Williams (33), Felix Walker (23) and Ahmad (17 not out) then led the way as the hosts reached 100-5 in 22.3 overs.