Purley Cricket Club's stand-in captain Adnan Saleem says the club need to get out of the drop zone and fast if they are to avoid relegation this year.

Saturday's narrow two wicket defeat to top of the table Pyrford yielded some promising signs but it was their seventh loss on the trot and they now sit second bottom in Surrey Championship Division One.

With just seven games left they are four points behind Dulwich and Saleem, standing in for Keith Medleycott who is out of the country working for the next six weeks, believes they must start to win games soon if they are to have any hope of staying in the league.

"We need to get out of it," he said.

"It obviously plays on your mind and the quicker we can get out of it the better.

"We need a win to get ahead of Dulwich then we are at least out of the drop zone and we can go and enjoy our cricket a bit more."

Purley started off well against Pyrford but a middle order collapse saw Sam Brandon, Lucas Macdonald and Anthony De Mel all out for a duck and meant they posted just 186 in 65 overs, a target the league leaders reached in 54 overs after a few jitters of their own in their middle order.

"We bowled pretty well but too often we have not been able to do both batting and bowling together," said Saleem.

"We do well at one one week and the other well the next.

"We need to get both sorted as losing three wickets for no runs is hard to recover from."

On top of the defeat, Purley were deducted a point for a slow over rate, which Saleem thought was harsh.

"It was a close game and there was a bit of rain around and the ball got lost a few times," he said.

"I did try to reason and argue it out with the umpires afterwards but didn't get anywhere.

"If you have a close game then surely some leniency should come into it, you have to think about your bowling changes and your field a lot more."