Bury St Edmunds captain, Sean Park, is hoping that last weekend’s pulsating draw at Swardeston, the real powerhouse of the East Anglian Premier League in recent years, will be a “turning point” in his side’s season.

Bury have been involved in some nail-biting relegation battles in recent summers, and they began this term with a depressing six defeats out of six, until Saturday’s dramatic encounter at The Common, which ended with both sides making 258 for eight.

“Every game is different, but hopefully this might be a turning point for us,” insisted inspirational all-rounder Park.

“It was important to stop our losing run. We weren’t really competitive in our first six matches, and we didn’t want to lose for a seventh game in a row.

“Now we have a big game this weekend, at home to Burwell.

“Playing a team down near the bottom, it’s a very important match,” added Park.

This Saturday’s visitors, Burwell, suffered their fifth defeat of the season last weekend, at home to Great Witchingham, taking just one point from the game. The Cambridgeshire club are just two places and 41 points better off than bottom club Bury.

By contrast, last Saturday’s hosts Swardeston, who have the EAPL title for the last five seasons, had won five of their first six matches of the summer.

They were red-hot favourites to beat lowly Bury, but in the end they had to make do with an equal score draw, in what was a match of fluctuating fortunes.

Skipper Park took two wickets in two balls to reduce Swardeston to 167 for seven, still 92 runs short of their target, at which point Bury were in the driving seat.

Park said: “We couldn’t get another breakthrough, and they looked set for victory when requiring 24 runs off the last four or five overs. We worked it out that we could bowl just four overs, so that made it 24 off 24 balls.

“That became five runs off the last nine balls, until Stephen Gray (103) holed out at deep-mid-wicket. He was still playing his shots, rather than just batting sensibly.

“I had a big LBW shout on the first ball of the last over, which added to the drama, and in the end they needed two off the last ball, getting just the single.

“I’m obviously happy that we didn’t lose the game, but it’s a match we could have won, so I’m disappointed as well. At least we competed on a level footing with a very good side.”