DORCHESTER 114 (4pts) lost to POOLE TOWN 115-7 (18pts) by three wickets

DORCHESTER captain Simon Mitchem admitted his side were “not good enough with the bat” as they suffered their first league loss of the season against Poole Town at the Rec.

Having lost the toss and been put in by last season’s league runners up, the county town side found themselves behind the eight ball from the outset, having been left struggling at 44-4.

Poole’s Jean-Piere Cronje wiped out two of the top three Dorchester batsmen.

With the visitors in control, Dorchester could do nothing to prevent Joe Wormington then clinically working his way through the lower order to dismiss the hosts.

He made a stellar job of cleaning up the tail. There were also two wickets for Badrul Alam.

Pete Moxom (19) was the highest scoring batsman for Dorchester and it could have been even worse if Poole hadn’t gifted Mitchem’s men 22 extras in the 47.3 overs they took to bowl the home team out for 114.

And despite Dorchester putting up a brave fight with the ball to set up an interesting contest, they were always going to struggle to defend such a miserly first innings total and ended up falling short.

Leg-spinner Jack Walklett impressed to claim figures of 2-21 off his nine overs, opening bowler James Dunham also produced 2-18 off just less than seven overs bowled.

Speaking after the contest, skipper Mitchem told Echosport: “We really dug in and had a good go with the ball to get seven wickets. It was pleasing with the fight that we showed.

“But the batting performance just was not good enough, nobody went on and scored big, which has come back to haunt us.

“It’s a bit of a bitter pill to swallow that we got that close. With 170 or 180 we would have made a really good game of it, so it’s disappointing really.

“The toss was a big one to win and the wicket did do a bit early on, we would have bowled first as well but we can’t blame that.

“We weren’t good enough with the bat and that’s the bottom line.”

He added: “Someone has got to stay there because it makes such a big difference if someone scores 70 or 80 every week.

“They were there for the taking, it’s just another learning curve for us.

“Getting runs on the board is so important and we have to find ways of setting a platform.”