The firsts recorded possibly their most complete performance of the season in beating Cairns Fudge on Saturday.
Batting first on another fantastic cricket wicket in OX10, Dorch had to be patient against a miserly visiting attack.
With pace and bounce on offer for the bowlers, visiting captain Steve Shaw expertly marshalled his field to block off just about any early scoring opportunity.
Dorchester’s Chris Rudling (bowled for 2) and Steve McComb (LBW for 14) both fell to opener Ben Brearey who bowled quickly and with the necessary precision to match his skipper's offside-weighted field.
But Dorchester’s strength in depth and characteristic ability to pace an innings helped redress the balance in the middle overs as Ady Redhead (41) and James Rockall (34) steadily began to accumulate runs.
Though, at 68/2 after 25 overs, it remained attritional stuff.
Dan Houseman chipped in with a typically breezy 18, but Tom Ferris – returning from university for the first time in 2023 – made just 1, leaving Dorchester on 123/5 with a maximum of 10 overs remaining.
Thankfully, James Neal bashed 30 off 35 balls before Tom Kitson (18 not out) and Ali Line (6 not out), both called up from the second team, added valuable late runs.
At the change of innings Dorchester had amassed 185/7 from 47 overs, leaving 43 overs for the visitors to chase it down or bat out for the draw.
At a ground where 200-plus is the expected par score, it felt light. But against arguably the strongest all-round opposition of the season so far – offering up a wily bowling attack and well-set fields – it felt like Dorchester’s slow-and-steady approach might be rewarded.
Needing to be at their best from the outset, Dorchester’s opening bowlers tucked into the task and managed to take early wickets.
James Neal got the ball to hoop around and took 3/31 from his 10 overs before Dan Houseman got out his hazmat suit and cleaned up the scene with 4/29 - ably assisted by two great boundary catches by Ferris.
What those excellent bowling figures, which helped reduce Cairns Fudge (formed by a group of ex-Brookes students and named after Kiwi pro Chris Cairns’s former confectionary business, in case you were wondering) to 24/4 in the 10th over, don’t tell you is the contribution of two key players.
Ali Line was keeping wicket for the first time in two years and made three excellent catches, including a nonchalant one-handed effort off Neal and an instinctive grab off spinner Houseman.
And Jon Coleman, signed from Didcot in midweek, made an instant impact on his debut.
Coming on to bowl as the dangerous Shaw was finding the boundary with ease, our new recruit had the visiting skipper caught at mid-wicket by Neal and finished with excellent figures of 2/14 from 5.3 overs.
That crucial wicket of Shaw began a collapse which took Fudge from 86/4 to 115 all out, giving Dorch their fourth win in a row and keeping them second in the table just a single point behind Wantage.