CHARLTON DOWN 134-3 (20pts) beat BLANDFORD SECONDS 131 (4pts) by seven wickets

CHARLTON Down kept up their fantastic start to the season with a convincing seven-wicket win over Blandford Seconds.

The hosts skittled Blandford out for 131 with Kim Park taking five wickets.

In reply, Sam Roles didn’t hang about scoring 63 from 37 balls as they romped home with 24 overs to spare.

Before the game, the club were handed May’s team of the month thanks to their impressive form.

Blandford elected to bat and were soon in trouble when Matt Stevens bowled Tom Coubrough for four.

The Blandford batsmen found scoring runs very difficult from the accurate bowling.

A change of bowling reaped immediate rewards with Jae Miller snaffling two catches at mid-on off the spin bowling of Park with the score on 26-3.

This soon became 43-5 with Park picking up his second and third wicket beautifully deceiving Lee Veringa with flight to trap him leg before wicket.

Harry Rogers and Simon Freak struck the ball hard but when the partnership was looking dangerous both batsmen fell to the spin of Park (5-34), both batsmen out top edging attempted sweeps.

Blandford had then slumped to 81-7 and an early finish looked ominous.

However Martin Weber (11), Joe Freak (24) and Lewis Freak (6) had other ideas adding 50 runs before Freak was run out by a direct hit from Nick Voss and the Blandford innings drew to a close on 131 all out.

It was obvious that Blandford would need to take early wickets to put pressure on the Charlton Down batsmen and with the first ball of the innings Ryan White bowled Jack Eveleigh for a duck.

In the very next over Sam Gale bowled Voss for three with the score on 3-2.

This brought together the inform Roles and Jae Miller who put together a partnership of 89.

With the score on 92, Sam Roles mistimed a cover drive into the grateful hands of Tim Margetson off Freak.

It was left to the stylish left hander, Matt Stevens, (30no) to bring up the winning runs with a delightful drive to the boundary.

Before play, captain Pete Tucker received the league award and after, commented: “After getting promoted we couldn’t have hoped for such a successful start to the new season. It’s unbelievable.

“We are planning for the long term and we now have three level two coaches and more youngsters coming through.”