Rich Cox is celebrating after taking his 1,000th wicket for Stroud.

The 52-year-old right-arm seamer reached the fantastic landmark on Saturday in a Division Five Gloucestershire County League game for the 2nds away to Minchinhampton.

Rich, the club’s statistician, went into the match well aware that he needed two more wickets to finally reach 1,000 after joining the club aged 12 all the way back in 1977.

Victim number 999 was Pete Raphael, bowled, while shortly after Rich held an excellent catch off the bowling of Chris Dutton before he was back in the attack.

Jack Cartledge then miscued a big heave to extra cover where Ollie Holmes juggled the ball before holding on to spark what Rich called “five minutes of pandemonium!”.

He said: “It was a bit of a bizarre moment. He had a real swing at the ball and it went up a fair distance… everyone was holding their breath as it came down. It then bobbled out of Ollie’s hands before he held on.”

Rich made a start on his next thousand by capturing one more wicket to finish with figures of 3-22 from nine in a 51-run victory which moved Stroud up to third place and in the hunt for promotion at the halfway stage of the season.

The all-rounder – he has also notched up six centuries and more than 6,000 runs in tandem with his efforts with the ball – will now have to take a couple of weekends off after aggravating a long-standing Achilles problem, but is keen to get back in the middle as soon as possible.

Rich added: “I’ll keep playing for as long as I can stand up, I love my cricket too much to stop.

“These days it takes a bit longer to recover but us older ones are very lucky because the club has got its own sauna and it’s a godsend… 30 minutes in there after a game usually helps sort out your aches and pains, it’s been a great investment!”.

Rich’s best figures in 623 appearances to date are 7-35, in a Western League game against Midsomer Norton.

Surprisingly, he has never taken a hat-trick – “I’ve had four in five and five in seven but not a hat-trick… yet!” – and is determined to plough on also in the hope of completing a first ‘five-for’ at Stroud’s Ebley ground since the move in 2011.

He added: “We’ve got honours boards here for anyone who takes five wickets or more or scores a hundred for any of our four sides in a home game.

“I’m not on the board… yet! But it would be lovely to get there one day.”

Rich, incidentally, overhauled previous leading wicket taker Martin Cullimore (842) several seasons ago.

And when he’s not taking wickets, he is close to completing a written history of the Stroud club which he hopes to publish next year.