EXCELLENT cricketing news has just reached me.

We have county cricketer in the making here in the village of Abbotsbury. Marcus Evans, who turns 12 in July, has been selected to play cricket for the county for the third consecutive season.

Marcus will play for Dorset in their first two games, the first against Hampshire followed up by the second in Wales at the end of May.

We have watched with interest this keen young man practising on the cricket pitch with his father Rob (and sometimes his mother Julie) on the local pitch since he was a little boy.

Marcus, who attends Sunninghill School in Dorchester, has played in a couple of friendly matches for the village and really enjoyed himself particularly so, his mother tells me, when he took a wicket!

They have all been very impressed by the friendliness of Abbotsbury Cricket Club and their willingness to allow juniors to take part. However Marcus plays his club cricket with Martinstown as Abbotsbury do not have a youth team.

So congratulations go to Marcus - very well done.

  • DISTURBINGLY our Neighbourhood Watch person has received news of a spate of distraction burglaries in the east of the region on Thursday, May 15 and Saturday, May 17.

The police give seven cases and there may be many more not reported to them.

In the first case there were two men posing as water board officials targeting the elderly.

The other cases were in Chideok and Poole where a woman posed as a police officer. We are asked to keep an eye on our vulnerable neighbours and to make sure that they check identities and phone 999 or 01305 222222 if at all concerned and not the numbers given to them by the perpetrators.