WIMBORNE & COLEHILL 190-2 (20pts) bt BERE REGIS 187ao (4pts) by eight wickets

BERE Regis suffered a tough eight-wicket loss to last year’s Dorset Funeral Plan Premier League champions Wimborne and Colehill.

David Griffiths (40) and Elliott Woodhouse (30) provided late highlights in the Bere batting order, but Wimborne saw Colin Randall make 113 runs as the Minstermen chased down the total in 42.3 overs.

Bere won the toss and opted to bat, but struggled to put any solid partnerships together.

Richard Payne (4) was the first to fall, caught by James Miller from a Robert Hatchard (2-30) delivery with 15 runs on the board.

One run later Robert Murphy was caught by Graham Cole from an Ed Bartlett (2-34) ball, while Nick White (22) followed with Bere having limped onto 33-3.

Jacob Lambert (4) and Rich Cole (18) began to put a partnership together, before the former was dismissed to leave Bere on 64-4.

Bere were in danger of putting a low total on, after Rich and Rob Cole were dismissed in quick succession to leave the visitors at 79-6.

Yet at 117-8 with Bere close to being all out, Griffiths and Woodhouse struck up a good partnership to fire Bere up to 174-9, before their time with the bat was ended 13 runs later.

With Wimborne at the crease, Randall did most of the damage with his century.

Despite Bere removing Miller (26) to make it 66-1, and then Mark House (20) at 138-2, they could not stop Wimborne.

Bere captain Rich Cole admitted that his side fell short, but praised the late efforts of Woodhouse and Griffiths with the bat.

Cole told Echosport: “We fell short, we may well have had our pace bowlers back but we struggled to really keep a lid on their batting.

“It got away from us to be fair. We did not set a big enough target, our batsmen, including myself, sort of threw our wickets away, rather than being bowled out I think we sort of gave it away a bit too cheaply.

“Fortunately though, to be honest we should have been bowled out for 110, it was quite nice we had young Elliott scoring some late runs and it is good to see Dave scoring some runs as well.”

Bere travel to Poole Park to face unbeaten leaders Poole Town on Saturday.