OPENER Daniel Bloomer smashed a century as Feckenham clinched promotion in style with a scintillating run chase to defeat Enville in the final game of the Worcestershire League Division Two season.
The Millers had to chase down the visitors’ 298-8 to win by five wickets and secure second place behind champions Redditch Entaco and ahead of Chaddesley Corbett.
The promotion means that Feckenham will be playing top-tier cricket for the first time in their history since the change of format.
“What we have achieved this season is quite remarkable,” said captain Jamie Reddish. “We’ve lost the least amount of games in the league (two) and battled back from adversity quite a few times this season.
“The only two games we lost were by one wicket against Chaddesley and a collapse against Lye so we know we have great consistency for such a young team. I’m extremely proud.”
After winning the toss, Reddish decided to play it safe and invited Enville to bat knowing that maximum bowling points would leave Feckenham a target of only 150 to achieve promotion.
However, despite two early wickets from Matt Henning (2-62) Feckenham were reeling as an unbeaten partnership of over 150 by talented Enville duo Matt Branch (93) and Greg Tomkins (75) had Feckenham staring down the barrel of a big run chase.
These fears were finally alleviated, however, when confusion running between the wickets allowed Muhammed Idrees to run out Branch just short of his 100 and give Feckenham their crucial first bowling point.
This wicket seemed to calm the nerves for The Millers and after Tom Coulson managed to pick up 3 quick wickets, moving his seasonal tally up to 64, and a couple of run outs meant that Feckenham managed to take eight Enville wickets, meaning The Millers needed 175 to guarantee promotion.
Coulson’s wickets also meant that he topped the Worcestershire League for wickets taken in the 2016 season.
Feckenham made sharp work of chasing down the 175 that they needed.
Opener Muhammed Idrees made a typically rapid start to the innings with a quick-fire 29. However, when he departed this brought together two of Feckenham’s key batsman with Bloomer and Griffiths at the crease.
The pair made what could have been a testing target look remarkably easy as Feckenham reached their promotion target with over 20 overs to go.
Griffiths eventually departed on 69 with his job already done, leaving him with a total of 754 runs for the season, the third highest in the division.
Bloomer wasn’t in the mood to celebrate just yet though and with help from Josh Stacey (21) and captain Reddish (30) ensured that Feckenham reached 300 with two overs to spare to really start the party.
