Parlane crushes long-standing league runs record

A record 1,074 runs, a championship winner's medal and the Southern Electric Premier League batting prize.

Not a bad summer's work for Wellington's Neal Parlane, 25, who flew home to New Zealand this week after a boundary-strewn title winning four months at BAT's Southern Gardens home.

For the record, Parlane scored his 1,074 runs off 968 deliveries, hitting 31 sixes and 157 fours.

That equates to 814 runs in boundaries alone. The other 260 he actually had to run!

In 30-odd years of Southern League cricket, no individual has dominated the local scene to such an extent.

Overseas players have helped teams win championships - but never to such an extent as Parlane, who took 47 balls to get the 52 he required against South Wilts last week to smash Robin Smith's long-standing Southern League run record.

He went on to make 110 - his fourth century of the summer. He also made nine scores of 50 or more.

All washed down with a refreshing glass of lager !

The biggest irony of all, of course, is that Parlane wasn't even BAT's first choice as an overseas player.

In fact, they'd never heard of him until Kenya World Cup star Kennedy Otieno pulled out of an intended return to Southern Gardens little more than a month before the season began.

Parlane, who had been prolific for Fleetwood & Hesketh in the ECB Liverpool Championships for the previous three seasons, spotted BAT's dilemma when he trawled through the website looking for somewhere in the UK to spend the summer.

The rest of the story, of course, is history.

Bad news for Premier League bowlers is that Parlane has signed up to spend the 2004 season at BAT.

And his 31-year old brother Michael, who also plays Provincial cricket in New Zealand, could be coming with him.

Lymington and South Wilts have already targeted Parlane senior, who has scored more First Class runs than his brother, Neal.

What odds on a Parlane winning the Premier League batting award in 2004 ?