SOUTH Wilts run gun Tom Morton has broken the ECB Southern Premier League batting records – and left a 1,213 run marker that may never be beaten.

He certainly finished the season in style, belting a fifth century as South Wilts coasted past a Burridge total of 251-9 to win by eight wickets with four overs to spare.

The only disappointment was that Morton’s 125 not out was not a championship winner – South Wilts finishing in third place, 13 points behind title winners St Cross Symondians and nine adrift of the Hampshire Academy.

But 2022 at Bemerton has all been about Morton - only the second batsman in 23 years to score 1,000 runs in top flight Southern Premier Division cricket – and left-arm quick Josh Croom, who finished the season with 48 wickets, the joint second highest behind James Hibberd for South Wilts in 2008.

Morton went into the Burridge match having scored 124 against Totton & Eling and 94 at Havant in his previous two knocks, so he was in pretty decent nick.

Hitting two sixes and 18 fours, Morton shared a second wicket stand of 161 with Jack Mynott (69) before Ben Draper chipped in with an unbeaten 35.

Joe Collings-Wells top scored with 75 for Burridge, while Croom – who has been trialling with Warwickshire – took 4-50 to finish the season two victims short of a half-century of wickets.

South Wilts seconds took third place in Division Three after ending the season with a six-wicket win at Paultons, where teenage spinner Kit Blomfield took 5-17 as the host were dismissed for 135.