South Wilts will be officially crowned ECB Southern Premier Division champions after Saturday’s final match of the season against Burridge at Bemerton, 11.30.
They clinched their sixth title – and a first since 2015 – with a 60-run victory at Alton, the result sentencing the Brewers to relegation and a Division 1 slot next season.
But, with Alton fighting for their immediate future in top flight Hampshire recreational cricket, winning at the Jubilee Ground was far from a straightforward exercise.
South Wilts lost Tom Morton to the first ball of the match and had to be dug out of trouble at 110-6 before a total of 209-8 proved a sufficient winner.
They went on to bowl Alton out for 149, spin duo Tom Lewis and Jack Mynott sharing six of the wickets.
But long before that Mynott (29) and Peter Rowe (41) had an immediate innings rebuild on their hands when Morton nicked a slip catch to Fletcha Middleton off South African Bash Walters’ first ball.
They progressed the score to 60 when a triple strike by the emerging Jude Wright (3-35) and a Julian Ballinger brace sent South Wilts plunging 110-6.
Alton sniffed the chance of easing their relegation fears, but Raff Hussey (45) and Arthur Godsal (27) repaired the damage and set up the perfect pre-tea scenario for Ben Huntley to biff three sixes and three fours in a non-nonsense 41 not out and take South Wilts to 209-8.
Eight of the Alton batsmen made double-figure starts but only Dan Harris (27) got beyond 25 as the South Wilts bowlers chipped away.
Any realistic prospect they had of challenging the South Wilts score effectively ended when they lost three wickets – two of them to Mynott (3-52) – in the 70s.
Lewis, with 3-25, gleefully mopped up the Alton tail. Cue celebrations as Alton fell to 149 all out.
The second XI hosted Fawley CC. Fawley, batting first, finished on 190/8 from 38 overs.
South Wilts did not put up much of a fight, and were dismissed for 107 all out, from 29.1 overs.
The thirds had better luck, beating Steep CC by 35 runs. They put 183 on the board from their 40 overs, and bowled the visitors out for 148 within 38.3 overs.
The fourth XI lost by ten wickets to Whiteparish.
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