Southampton Rangers 313-8; Cleveland Cricket Club 111

Janeiro Tucker smashed a 63-ball ton as Southampton Rangers crushed Cleveland by 202 runs in the Premier Division yesterday.

On a day when Cleveland's Dwayne Leverock made his first return to the Southampton Oval with his new side, the home team dominated the encounter from start to finish.

And they were helped in no small part by an atrocious Cleveland performance that included three dropped catches, all from the hapless Courtney Trott, a massive 40 extras, including 21 leg byes, and saw Steven Douglas jr and Patrick Stamp top score with just 17 apiece.

Such was the home side's dominance, that they could even afford to give Leverock a guard of honour as he made his way to the wicket with his side dead and buried on 76-7.

"I think that was the worst performance I have ever witnessed," said Cleveland skipper Clay Smith.

"There were dropped catches, over throws, it was totally unprofessional.

"When you are playing quality teams you can only afford to make one or two mistakes, otherwise good players are going to make you pay and that's exactly what Janeiro Tucker did.

"There are a lot of players in this team that have potential, but it will always just be that if they don't do it out on the field. Not one person settled in and tried to make a fight of it and that hurt us."

Smith had left himself out of the game, believing it better to try and bring some of the younger members of the squad on.

It was a decision that he admitted may have been a mistake.

"Tactically I may have made a mistake by not picking myself, but I am trying to get some of the guys to take some responsibility. Someone needed to step-up and do the job, but no-one stepped up and this is the result."

The outcome might have been different if Cleveland hadn't inexplicably crumbled in the field in the second half of the Rangers innings. At 159-6 in the 34th over the game could have gone either way.

As it was, a combination of powerful hitting from Tucker and Shannon Raynor, plus some poor fielding, that saw the ball race to the boundary of several occasions from the hand of a Cleveland fielder, took the game away from the visitors.

Tucker scored 102 and hit eight fours and seven sixes as he and Raynor (48) put on 117 runs in less than 10 overs.

Tucker should have been out on 93, when he was dropped by Trott at long-on. He made the most of the reprieve, smashing a six over the pavilion to bring up his century in the final over.

The visitors were always going to struggle to chase down such a large total, and their job became even harder when opener Curtis Jackson was out lbw to Malachai Jones to leave his side on 37-1.

Jackson may consider himself unfortunate to have been given out, especially as the ball appeared to pitch outside the off stump, but there were far worse decisions during the course of the match, with Rangers suffering several times during the course of their innings.

Douglas' dismissal summoned up Cleveland's overall performance, the opener was run out by a direct throw from Andrew Raynor, going for a single that he would have completed had he chosen to run and not to jog to the non-strikers end.

At 55-2 the chances of Cleveland getting anything from the game had all but disappeared, and once Ryan Belboda had dismissed Anthony Bascome and Charles Richardson to leave the visitors flailing on 60-5 it was only a matter of when, and not if, Rangers would win.

It was only fitting then that Jones, having taken the first wicket, should wrap up the innings, firstly by trapping Leverock lbw with a superb slower ball, and then sending down a yorker to dismiss Tamauri Tucker the same way.