In an amazing final day of the Southern Electric Premier Cricket League Three season Sarisbury snatched second spot in dramatic fashion to secure promotion to Division Two.
The promotion party was in full swing back at Sarisbury Athletic's clubhouse
Pete Hammond and the lads were away at Totton & Eling and they had to win to get that promotion, and even then either Tichborne Park or OTs & Romsey CC had to lose.
If they both lost, Sarisbury would be champions. So many permutations but for the first two hours of the game, the simple requirement of winning looked beyond them.
Happy to bat first, the captain could only look on in despair as his top order melted away. Archie Norris got 15 but the rest of the top seven batsmen were out for two runs or less.
All except the captain himself who gritted his teeth and restrained his shot-making while trying to repair the damage.
At 72 for 5 Hammond had 33 and was working so hard at survival. Then, with the score on 99, he hit a long, lofted drive which was brilliantly caught on the boundary.
With Hammond gone for 44 the situation looked grim.
However the tail-end batsmen played brilliantly to turn things around. At the centre of things was 16-year-old left-hander Sam Floyd who pushed the singles and ran like a hare to keep the scoreboard ticking over.
He also hit three spanking boundaries in his crucial innings of 30. Keeping him company were the two opening bowlers, Jimmy Ingram and Adam Sharp.
Jimmy went for a useful nine runs and the score was 127 for 8.
The team had originally hoped for a total in excess of 200 now 175 was a distant ambition. Floyd went, stumped, with the score on 154 and then Sharp decided to attack the bowling.
He struck a splendid 28 runs including one enormous six out of the ground and over the top of the flats being built next door.
Accompanied by spinner Paul Freidrich, “Sharpy” lifted the total beyond the 175 target and the innings finally closed on 188.
A relieved Sarisbury were convinced that they could win with that total but what about the other two sides?
The skipper’s father had been on the phone to the other two matches and Romsey were defending a total of 164 on a very difficult pitch while Tichborne had been set a target of 223 in 28 overs.
Nobody could guess the outcome so all the team could do was concentrate on winning their game.
Totton clearly perceived that the target of 189 was beyond them and batted for bonus points, which they needed to avoid the threat of relegation.
After 10 overs, the score was 8 for 2 and the only problem for Sarisbury was making sure they took all 10 wickets.
There was a bit of a stalemate for a while which was eventually broken by wicketkeeper Simon Orr brilliantly running out Totton’s number three.
As the innings moved on, victory became more inevitable. Totton’s batsmen relaxed a little and had a shot or two to break the deadlock but they were 46 for 5 after 24 overs and thereafter collapsed.
Jimmy Ingram clean bowled two men with consecutive deliveries and ended the over looking for a hat-trick. It wasn’t to be however as spinner Friedrich finished the innings by getting Rides caught by Matt Journeaux with the total on just 76. A crushing victory by more than 100 runs. But it really didn’t mean a thing if they didn’t get that promotion.
Agonizingly slowly the phone calls revealed that OTs & Romsey had convincingly won their game and were confirmed as worthy champions.
Then came the news that Tichborne needed 76 from 9 overs with 4 wickets left. There followed 20 minutes of silent agony before the news finally filtered through – “TICHBORNE HAVE LOST”.
It’s official now, Sarisbury Athletic are promoted to Division 2 of the Southern Electric Premier Cricket League.
The club was already celebrating as the 3rd X1 under the leadership of Wildern School teacher, Greg Horton, had already secured promotion to Hampshire CL Division 4, an astonishing achievement for a club 3rd XI.
Additionally, the 4th XI captained by Mark Hansford needed just two points to go up a division, and secured those on the final day as well.
It has been quite a season for Sarisbury – three promotions from five teams.