Old Rutlishians Joe Riches has been skipper for just two seasons, but he already has two successive promotions under his belt.

The Old Boys promotion to Division Two of the Surrey Championship was already confirmed before last weekend’s mammoth 213-run win at Staines & Laleham.

However, Riches takes little credit for the club’s first appearance of the modern era in the second tier of Surrey cricket, instead preferring to lavish praise on his team.

“As a captain I have a laissez faire approach, I always just tell the lads to go and be positive, make sure you enjoy it,” he said.

“We have a great team spirit. We’ve only used 14 players this season, which speaks volumes. People want to play for the club, no one has cried off at the weekends on things like stag dos.

“In fact, a lot of players have sacrificed their weekends, so full credit to them.”

The win at Staines not only brought the curtain down on the season, it also saw the Old Boys complete a perfect record of 15 wins from 18 games (with three abandoned).

Riches said: “We had a winning mentality at the club after promotion from Division Four, and that continued.

“We were frustrated by the early abandoned games, but when we finally got playing against Old Wimbledonians we were superb.

“We hit about 260, and then bowled them out for 67. We fielded superbly, batted superbly and bowled superbly, and that really set the benchmark for the season.

“All season Dan Wood and Salman Mohammed have been majestic with the bat, and James Shackleton and Perry Colyer have bowled really well.”

Meanwhile, the success is not limited to the first XI because the second string will be playing Division One cricket next season after promotion at champions.

And it does not stop there, the thirds have won promotion to the Premier Division as champions of Division One.