MARTINSTOWN 124 (1pt) lost to BROADSTONE 129-1 (20pts) by nine wickets

MARTINSTOWN suffered a one-sided nine-wicket loss at the hands of Broadstone in the Dorset Funeral Plan Premier Division.

The home side won the toss and chose to bat but soon saw Sean Williams (5) dismissed with 22 runs on the board at Lower Ashton Farm.

Ed Nichols (35) and George Pope (20) put in a good partnership to bolster the score up to 62-1 before disaster struck.

Firstly, Nichols fell to make it 62-2, and four runs later Pope was also gone, bowled by Matt Spraggs.

Martinstown never really recovered from the loss of the two wickets. Will Maltby (18) and Tom Pope (9) limped up to 80-3, before the latter was dismissed and Jamie Stewart (0) soon followed.

Jacob Coombs (17no) provided faint hope late on, but not enough to push the home side on towards a threatening total.

When Broadstone stepped up to the crease Martinstown were able to deliver an early blow, as Connor Tarr was dismissed when Charlie Durant caught him from a Chris Read delivery with just one run on the board.

However, Luke Carter (53) and James Park (56) then formed a brilliant partnership that took the visitors over the line to seal the heavy defeat for Martinstown.

Stand-in Martinstown captain Ed Nichols lamented the loss of his and George Pope’s wickets that saw a collapse from the home side.

Nichols said: “We won the toss and chose to bat on a good wicket and I think we got off to a really solid start and were just looking like we were going to post a really good partnership for the second wicket between myself and George.

“I think just short of drinks I got out to a short wide one, possibly threw the wicket away and I think George will probably admit he did as well, so we had two set batsmen go in quick succession and then the middle order just struggled.

“It is just a disappointing collapse really, which we found it hard to recover from despite a couple of decent efforts in the middle and lower order.

“Obviously at 124 you are always up against it and they have got two, certainly at least two very top order players who came out and played really aggressively, we dropped two catches and we just could not afford to do it and they have obviously finished up really quickly.

“It is just throwing away wickets ourselves and not taking those opportunities when the other team give them to us I think.”

When asked why he thought the rest of the order fell away, Nichols replied: “I think Broadstone are an experienced side and certainly it is a very settled bowling attack.

“I think they just know to capitalise when things go their way, as I say I think we had them on the run for a bit but then the game changes with those couple of wickets.

“I think they are just very good at getting back on the pressure and certainly Spraggs the spinner, as soon as I was out, just seemed to put together a string of really tight overs that took the momentum away from us.

“So I just think they are an experienced bowling outfit, they capitalised then and I think we’ve just got to go a bit smarter about continuing to assert ourselves on the game.”

Martinstown travel to Wimborne & Colehill on Saturday.