BROADSTONE II 250-6 (17pts) beat CATTISTOCK 249-4 (8pts) by four wickets

CATTISTOCK suffered a tough high-scoring defeat away at Broadstone Seconds despite some superb batting in County Division One.

Cattistock captain Johnathan Legg won the toss and chose to bat first and he opened with Ben Golledge with Martin Langford absent.

They began well and punished the bad ball and took advantage of the lightning fast outfield.

The visitors brought up a 100-partnership in the 22nd over as Golledge passed 50 and looked to kick on with plenty of batsmen left.

However, Golledge was bowled with the score on 51 and Liam Toohill followed two overs later. Legg’s innings was brought to an end on 43 when he was involved in a mix-up and was run-out. Debutant Jason Bradley came to the crease and started strongly but Billy Wallbridge (17) was next to fall, bringing on Brandon Ward out to the middle.

Bradley and Ward hit well as the score passed 200 and big hits in the final four overs took Cattistock up towards 250 with Ward finishing unbeaten on 55no and Bradley (41no).

Oliver Lee started well and took the first wicket when Billy Browning parried the ball up and Colin Mullins reacted at second slip to hold onto the catch. Lee could have had the other opener caught behind as well in his following over, but the catch went to ground.

Following this, J Colegate (78) struck 13 fours and four sixes before Lee finally got his man by cartwheeling his off stump. Broadstone kept coming at Cattistock and another drop went down off the bowling of Toohill. Louis d’Abo snared the Wimborne captain lbw and Legg then caught Le Boutillier off the bowling of Bradley Damen (1-34). Toohill returned and this brought two wickets to leave the hosts on 197-6. Cattistock kept pushing for victory but Broadstone won with eight overs to spare.

Cattistock captain Legg said: “We thought 250 was a par score and an absolute minimum for us to target in our innings. As it turned out it we could’ve probably done with 20 or so more runs. We have put a few catches down recently that have really cost us and it was the same here. This is something we need to rectify ahead of this weekend.

“Looking at the positives it was great to put on 100 runs with Ben at the top of the order, Jason and Brandon played really well in the middle order.”