DORSET endured a tough start on the first day of their Unicorns Championship Western Division encounter at Nantwich as Cheshire posted a daunting 375-9.

Chris Park’s men had made a superb start, with Jigar Naik catching Cheshire opener Callum Rowe with just four runs on the board.

Rick Al Moore was dismissed with Cheshire on 69-2 with Josh McCoy again proving influential, as Scott Currie made the catch from McCoy’s delivery.

Danny Leech and Furqan Shafiq put in a fantastic 134-run partnership to send Cheshire just over the 200-mark before the latter was trapped lbw by Jigar Naik.

It seemed Dorset may have found the breakthrough when they took two wickets for the loss of just 12 runs.

Leech secured his century before being trapped lbw by Naik, while Wayne White was caught by Naik from a Josh Digby delivery.

However, Dorset’s opponents steadily boosted their score, and this was aided by Will J Evans coming to the crease, where he hit a great 71 as Cheshire climbed above 300.

At the end of the innings, Cheshire had totalled 375-9 leaving Dorset with a daunting total to chase.

In reply, Dorset suffered an early blow when Tom Arnold was caught by Evans from a White delivery at 4-1.

Dorset eventually closed the day on 21-1.