Farmers Cricket Club qualified comfortably for finals day at the European Cricket League Championship week after four wins and two defeats from their six matches.
After the first two days of the competition fell victim to the rain, days three and four at Cartama Oval in Spain were reduced from ten-over a side matches to just five a side.
Farmers, who had the same situation thrust upon them last week in their Group F qualification success, have shown no sign of letting up, despite the change of format.
In the topsy turvy world of short-form cricket, captain Zak Tribe has led his green army comfortably into the final day, sat atop the table at the time of writing.
Their third win came on Wednesday evening, after the time of print, where Farmers secured their third win of the day by breezing past the ominous Swiss side, Zurich Nomads.
Despite a rare failure from skipper Tribe, the Jersey T20 domestic champions rallied thanks to 52 from Julius Sumerauer and 24* from wildcard Christian Purchase.
With the ball, Will Perchard was the star, taking an astonishing three wickets from his solitary over, backed up well by the paceman Tommy Sturgess.
Farmers came into day four in red hot form, beating the German champions Darmstadt CC by nine wickets to make it four wins from four.
The Germans took to the crease first, posting 89 for 5 from their five overs, Scott Van Breda the star with the ball taking two wickets.
In reply, Tribe (32*) and Sumerauer (46) picked up where they left off the night before and got the job done with five balls to spare.
It looked almost guaranteed that Farmers would qualify automatically for the final, however, they stumbled over the finishing line.
Their penultimate league match saw them face Danish side Skanderborg, where an old friend in Nicolaj Damgaard returned to haunt them, removing Sumerauer for just four in the first over.
Tribe was again superb, smashing an unbeaten 54 as wickets fell around him to drag his side up to 82 for 4.
The reply was extraordinarily dramatic, even by European Cricket League standards.
After Toby Britton’s superb over which included a wicket and just three runs conceded, Will Perchard took the ball for the final over, with 13 runs to defend.
The over started well for Farmers, with Perchard removing the in-form Thanikaithasan for 41 and tilting the game in their favour.
Requiring nine runs off the final two deliveries, the Farmers fingers were crossed but to no avail as Skanderborg’s captain Rizwan Mahmood smashed consecutive sixes to win the game and hand Farmers their first defeat.
In their final league game, Farmers faced off with Dutch side Voorburg, knowing a win would guarantee their route immediately into the final.
However, again, Farmers tripped themselves up.
Tribe, arguably the most in-form player in the competition, found his off-stump pegged back first ball of the match by Vivian Kingma.
Sumerauer hit a quick-fire 32 off ten balls, but the innings never quite got going and they struggled to their lowest score yet of 65 for 6 from their five overs.
The Dutch in reply had a similarly poor start, losing two quick early wickets and scoring just 15 runs from the opening two overs.
The innings came down to the wire, as Tribe held back his spinner, Toby Britton, for the final over, with a hefty 20 runs to defend.
Nightmare struck, however, as Britton lost control of his first two deliveries of the over, flinging them well down the leg-side past James Smith with the gloves for ten free runs to the batting side.
20 runs off six balls had just become ten off six, and the game was completely flipped.
Despite a good effort for the remainder of the over, Udit Nashier slammed another mighty six to take the win off the penultimate delivery and hand Farmers back-to-back defeats to finish their group campaign.
A slightly damp ending to an excellent two days , Nonetheless Farmers make it to finals day. After a second place finish in the table, Farmers are scheduled today to face Skanderborg at 12:45pm (GMT) in the Qualifier 1.
The winner of that match will qualify automatically for the final, with the loser required to face the winner of the Eliminator earlier in the day for their chance of a spot in the big dance.
https://www.ecn.cricket/european-cricket-league/standings
Farmers CC squad: Zak Tribe (c), Julius Sumerauer, Rhys Palmer, Will Perchard, James Smith, Toby Britton, Christian Purchase, Jack Kemp, Adam Bradbury, Tommy Sturgess, Scott Van Breda
