DORCHESTER 48-1 (20pts) beat STALBRIDGE 47 (0pts) by nine wickets

DORCHESTER cruised to a swift nine-wicket opening-day victory against Stalbridge in the Dorset Funeral Plan Premier League.

A lost toss played in the home side’s favour, after swift bowling from Dorchester captain James Dunham (4-16) and Dan Belt (2-9) helped decimate the early Stalbridge batsman for 19-5, with the two bowlers accounting for six of the Stalbridge batters.

New signing Bharat Popli assisted with a catch from a Belt ball as the home side took out the Stalbridge fourth and fifth batsmen without conceding a run.

The pace continued as Dorchester never let their opponents take more than nine runs without losing a wicket.

Dorchester continued the pressure and by just shy of the two-hour mark had earned themselves a second innings target of 48 to win.

When it came to batting Belt (16-1) and Quentin Miller (17no) proved steady and intelligent with the bat.

However, they were helped when a poor ball allowed Belt to smash the ball away for six after Miller had struck an early four as they clawed away at the target without ever seriously looking in danger.

Good running, with encouragement from the sidelines, allowed the target to tumble further steadily with intermittent fours aiding the process.

Despite this, Belt was dismissed with Dorchester 29 runs along in the chase of their target.

However, this allowed Popli (12no) help Miller seal the victory in a swift 35-minute second innings.

Soon after, a sweeping shot and a four from Popli saw Dorchester close in to within 10 of their target.

The inevitable soon arrived as Dorchester struck to bring an end to the proceedings.

After the match, Dunham said: “It was a very good day.

“We lost the toss and I think we would have batted first but all bowlers bowled well and put them under pressure from the word go.

“Dan looked good himself, all bowled well and it was a very positive result.

“It was really important, I said to the boys in the middle it was worse to only win the game when you win the game one down.

“It sends a message out to the rest of the league, so it was really positive, it was really

good.”

Describing his take on the match, Dunham said: “Me and Dan started out, we had them for 18-4 so it was a huge start and put them under pressure from the word go which set the game up really.

“We took consistent wickets which helped.

“It was constant wickets, bowling them out for a low score is not easy with a bat so the boys did it really well. It was good.

“We did a good job today in difficult circumstances so it was good.”

Dorchester travel away to Swanage on Saturday.