South African batter Goles’ sparkling Southern Premier League run continues

The Burridge opener followed up his unbeaten 146 against top flight leaders St Cross with a sparkling 164 not out against second-placed Havant.

Add those scores to his 147 on debut against the Hampshire Academy in May and the South African now has the highest three individual innings in the division this season.

The only batter who has a higher SPL innings in 2023 is Harry Trussler, who scored 193 for St Cross 2nds against Hook & Newnham Basics 2nds in a Division 3 fixture.

Goles now has 639 Premier Division runs from nine innings at an average of 106.50 - second highest runscorer in the top flight is Havant’s George Metzger (360).

Rain was the eventual winner at The Ridge with Havant going well in reply to Burridge’s 262-8 declared.

The visitors were 122-1 with skipper Ben Walker 68 not out and Charlie Whitfield 35 not out, the pair having added 90 for the second wicket.

Goles had earlier dominated Burridge innings after Walker had won the toss and elected to field.

The batter - who made three first class appearances for Western Province five years ago - belted 14 fours and seven sixes in his 146-ball knock.

Second highest scorer was Chris Blake with 27 with Sonny Reynolds (3-78) Havant’s most successful wicket-taker.

Goles has a potential eight more innings left in a bid to score the 361 runs he needs to become only the sixth player to score 1,000 runs in a single SPL/Southern League campaign.

Hampshire legend Robin Smith set a new Southern League run record of 1,015 for Trojans 40 years ago.

The former England international’s record was beaten twice in 2003, when South African Erasmus Hendriske - also playing for Trojans - hit 1,025 Division 3 runs.

That same year, Kiwi Neal Parlane set a new record with 1,074 for Totton-based BAT in the top flight.

Two years later, Will Prozesky, who played for Havant and Purbrook, set a new best, scoring just two more runs than Parlane.

Last summer, Hambledon’s Matt De Villiers raised the bar even higher, plundering a spectacular 1,234 Division 2 runs.

The same year, Tom Morton set a new top flight record, hitting 1,213 runs for South Wilts.

Goles requires 596 runs to beat the record set by his fellow countryman De Villiers.

De Villiers, meanwhile, has carried on scoring runs - lots of them - for Longridge in the Northern Premier League this year.

In 21 league and cup innings, he has already plundered over 1,100 runs - including six centuries.

Two of those tons came in T20 ties against Garstang.