LANCING Manor Cricket Club’s Steve Luckhurst reached the milestone landmark of 1,000 wickets for the club on Saturday.

His moment of glory arrived with his second wicket, when St Matthias skipper Joel Sayers was caught down the legside by wicketkeeper Miles Scerri.

On a day of records, it was also his 400th league wicket for the club and came 25 years to the month after he claimed his first victim against Washington.

Luckhurst took his first wicket for the club in his fourth match – on May 22, 1988, having turned 20 earlier that month. He went on to take five wickets in that match and, since then, Luckhurst, 45, has been a consistent mainstay of the Manor attack.

He has picked up at least 25 wickets in a season on 20 separate occasions, with best figures of eight for 45. He becomes only the second bowler in the club’s 91-year history to reach the 1,000 landmark behind the late Bill Winter, who took 1,157 wickets and Luckhurst now has his sights on over-taking that record.

He said: “I’m 157 away so, hopefully, I can get that before I’m 50 if I take 30 to 40 wickets a season between now and then.

“It would be good if my son Matthew, who is nine-and-a-half now, is in the team when I take it and gets the catch for me to break the record.”

On the moment when he took his 1,000th wicket, Luckhurst, a right-arm medium pace bowler, said: “I’d have liked to have knocked over the stumps or got a nice lbw decision but it was just a little tickle down the legside to Miles Scerri, the wicketkeeper.

“I’d been thinking about a celebration when I got there – the Gangnam style or Usain Bolt – but it ended up with just a lot of high-fives.

“Everyone clapped, though, and their umpire came down to shake my hand, which was nice.”

Full story in this week’s paper.