Teenager Alex Dore helped lead Southampton Rangers to a ninth Belco Cup title yesterday at Lord’s, though chasing 138 for victory wasn’t an easy task against a St David’s side determined to hold on to the trophy they won last year.

Dore, 17, was voted Man of the Match after his 64 not out from 104 balls guided Rangers to victory with little more than five overs to spare. Dore, coming to the crease in the fourth over after the loss of opener Derrick Brangman with just four runs on the board, played the perfect anchor role as St David’s continued to take wickets around him in an attempt to defend their modest 137.

The match was developing into an intriguing contest as St David’s struck two telling blows in the seventh and tenth overs when they removed Curtis Jackson for eight and Dion Stovell for ten to leave Rangers nervously poised at 27-3. They needed somebody to anchor the innings and Dore proved himself to be up to the challenge.

The Bermuda Under-19 captain struck some telling boundaries during his 40 overs at the crease, hitting five fours and two sixes to keep Rangers moving towards their target. He put on 24 patient runs in eight overs with Ian Armstrong for the fifth wicket, then added 40 more with captain Janeiro Tucker between the 18th and 31st overs to carry their team to 91-5 when Tucker departed for 13 to a good catch at deep gully by Delyone Borden.

“Really, I was just trying to get myself in because I knew I had to stay with either Dion or Janeiro,” Dore said. “As the big three, one of us had to stay throughout the innings, plus we were ahead of the game for the whole innings so there was no risk.

“The main things was I wanted to get a ‘piece’ of every over. As a number three bat my role in the team is to bat and that’s what I’ve got to do.”

The only blemish in Dore’s innings was the mix-up between himself and Rohaan Simons which resulted in the Rangers wicketkeeper being run out. Dore hit the ball towards the boundary and settled for two runs with Simons looking for a third and being run out as George O’Brien’s throw from the deep caught him at Dore’s end. The two runs completed brought up Dore’s second 50 of the season.

“Rohaan has just come in but I was tired so I thought I was only running two and he wanted three and I couldn’t get there and just turned around,” Dore said. “It was one of those misunderstandings.”

At the fall of Simons’s wicket, Rangers were still 17 runs short of victory, and though Hasan Durham departed five runs later, Dore made certain of victory, ending the game with a cut for four off O’Brien who was again leading the St David’s team in the absence of OJ Pitcher, sidelined this weekend with a calf injury.

O’Brien led the St David’s bowling with three for 26 from 9.2 overs while opener Justin Pitcher conceded just 18 in his nine overs for one wicket. Spinner Del Hollis had economical figures of one for 17 from his ten overs.

St David’s missed the cool head of their captain in the middle order after the inform Fiqre Crockwell failed for the first time this season, going for just one when Simons held a catch behind off Sheldon Caesar’s first over with just seven on the board.

Richard Todd (8) and Borden, back batting higher up the order this season at number three, steadied things with a second wicket stand of 24 before Rangers, by now operating with Brangman and Tucker, struck two quick blows to remove Todd and Sammy Robinson to make it 35-3 before three more wickets went down at 54, 63 and 63 when Borden was finally sixth out for a personal contribution of 30 from 56 balls.

Justin Pitcher offered a fightback late in the innings when he scored 33 in a seventh wicket stand of 52 with McLaren Lowe before he fell to a return catch to Stovell. Pitcher hit five fours in his top knock as St David’s limped to 137 all out. Spinners did the damage for Rangers with Brangman taking three for 21 from 8.1 overs and Stovell three for 27 off eight.

“When you play a team like St David’s who have a good bowling attack, a low total is always going to be hard to chase,” said Tucker who had a good spell with the ball himself, giving up just 17 runs in his eight overs and taking one wicket.

“You just have to hang in there and pick up the ones and twos and just keep rotating the strike. Earlier the guys didn’t stick to the game play which, before lunch, was to get about 20 runs with no wickets lost. At lunch we were two down for 15 runs and it set us back a little bit and we had to rebuild.

“Rangers and St David’s are always competitive games and they fight to the end. I thought Alex [Dore] batted well, rebuilt the whole innings and took us to the end. One thing about him he listens and takes instructions well and if he continues on that path in the next three or four years he’ll be a good player in the future for Bermuda cricket.”