Beautiful Summers Day

They were against high-flying Pagham and injected hope into their relegation fight.

Victory was confirmed with 11 overs remaining as with the scores level, and his own personal tally on 97, Summers pulled a short pitched delivery to the leg-side boundary to mark up his hundred and a sensational result victory by nine wickets.

With the visitors at the Green having been asked to bat first and declaring on 215-8, Southwick openers Nick King and Steve Martin immediately showed their intentions with 90 runs for the first wicket.

Pagham's Ian Dyer caught and bowled Martin for 46, to introduce Summers to the situation.

Sensing the opportunity of making the necessary runs and the impact of a win on Southwick's dwindling survival hopes, Summers proceeded to destroy the under-strength Pagham bowling attack, despatching fours and sixes to every area of the ground.

With each shot a controlled stroke, he never looked in any danger of losing his wicket.

Confidence oozed from all around the ground, as his watching team-mates discarded the comfort of their deck chairs, to stand, cheer and applaud as the winning target slowly disintegrated.

While Summers performed the heriocs at one end, Nick King remained firm in support, finally totting up a score of 66 not out an innings that, as well as some clever strokes and running of singles, included two sixes and nine fours.

Summers explained what had been the best innings of his life. Looking somewhat overcome by the day's events he managed: "Basically I made a good steady start to the innings, and really it took off from there. I'm exhausted but really on a buzz, I'm just totally overjoyed. Obviously I hope we can stay up, and I'm confident we can do that now".

Captain Mark O'Keefe was lost for words: "What can you say really? Chris is probably out most talented batsman and has been promising an innings of this class. We're back in it now absolutely brilliant".

Survival chances had been looking bleak for Southwick before Saturday. O'Keefe believes that there were simply seven teams better than Southwick: "When the league of 18 divided into two lots of nine, we just managed to scrape our way into the top half with victory on the last day of the season. We knew it would be difficult and our aims were simply to pick up results and hopefully to stay up".

He remained confident that relegation would not break up the team and that they would rebuild for next season, with his only concern being possibly losing strike bowler Paul Grennan: "He may wish to try out at a higher level, and if he has the confidence to do so then he must go for it. If it doesn't work out for him, he will always be welcomed back".