ALEX Keath will be wondering just what he has to do to finish on the winning side for Bournemouth.

After the Australian opener racked up a remarkable 116 not-out from 147 balls, including six fours and five sixes, he plundered two wickets with the ball in his hand but still ended up on the losing side at Chapel Gate as the rock-bottom hosts slumped to a fifth straight defeat against Ventnor.

While Keath’s luck held, surviving a catch earlier in the innings thanks to a no-ball shout from the umpire, the tide simply wouldn’t turn for Bournemouth with Will Old (27) their only other significant scorer. Mark Holmes (4-33) and Adam Wilson (3-32) led the charge for Ventnor who dismissed the home side for 184.

The visitors started badly with the bat as that man Keath sent opener James Cheek for a duck, but Neil Westhorpe (44) and Hugh Calloway (22) rallied to see Ventnor over the line with four wickets and three overs to spare, leaving Bournemouth two wins behind their nearest rivals after just five Southern Premier League matches, much to Miller’s dismay.

Bournemouth’s captain told the Daily Echo: “Alex was just in one of those moods to hit everything and it was an unbelievable innings. He was an absolute colossus but the rest of us didn’t exactly support him. Once again, we didn’t manage to bat our 50 overs.

“Will Old did really well, and one or two others lower down the order hung in there for Alex to keep scoring, but overall, we were all out fairly early and were disappointing with the bat.

“We managed to get their run-rate to around 5 an over, and at one stage we were favourites to go on and win the game, but they had one strong over where they scored about 12 and they pushed on from there.

“It was our best performance in the field so far this season. I can’t fault the lads for that side of our game and it was a lot closer than the scorecard might suggest.”

On Keath’s close call, Miller added: “Their lads just couldn’t believe it when the no-ball was given. He was on about 35 or 40 at the time and it was our first slice of luck this year.

“We all breathed a huge sigh of relief because we all saw him nick it and you could tell he had by the look on his face. We thought that might have been a little omen, that our luck was changing, but it wasn’t to be.”