CHARLTON DOWN 245-8 (20pts) beat CORFE MULLEN 154 (8pts) by 91 runs

CHARLTON Down continued their impressive unbeaten start to the season, recording their sixth straight win, with a convincing 91-run victory over a strong Corfe Mullen team.

Jae Miller (57) and Jack Eveleigh (34) put down the foundation to the innings with a well constructed 92-run partnership.

Miller brought up his 50 with a straight six but eventually fell to a good catch by Nigel Stannard off Dan Flooks attempting to up the run rate with the score on 92-1.

This soon became 104-3 when Eveleigh followed five runs later also caught on the mid-off boundary by John Bolt off Ben Jones and Sam Roles was impressively caught and bowled by the Corfe Mullen captain, Mike Jordan.

Nick Voss (37) and Matt Stevens (39) batted beautifully putting a 57-run partnership together with trademark cover drives and intelligent running between the wickets, pushing the score to 161-4 before Voss was caught by Bolt on boundary off Nigel Stannard’s

bowling.

Stevens was joined by the hard-hitting Javed Gill and a further 50-run partnership was achieved in only five overs.

Gill was the dominate partner smashing 41 off just 20 balls and only a brilliant caught and bowled by Jordan (3-21) ended the partnership with the score 220-5.

With overs were running out it was the stylish left hander Stevens who was out for 39, well caught by Jones off Stannard (2-54). The innings drew to a close on 245-8.

The Corfe Mullen reply got off to a bad start when Stevens (2-14) bowled both Pete Phillips and Stannard with the score on 13-2.

This was soon 15-3 when brother Dan Stevens had Jordan caught by Roles for eight.

Stevens picked up his second wicket when Jones nibbled one behind with the score on 36-4.

With more than 200 runs required for victory, it was Flooks (78) who took up the challenge of chasing down the target.

He regularly found the boundary and with only 18 overs left the score was on 119-4 and the result seemed to be in the balance.

That soon became 119-6 as captain Pete Tucker turned to Rich Fagence (2-23) and he removed Flooks thanks to a brilliant catch from Dan Stevens.

Fagence and Tucker both struck again reducing Corfe Mullen to 150-8.

Teenage debutant Marc Spurway then claim his first wicket for the club and victory was sealed with a run out with seven overs to spare.