Cleveland made certain of their place in the Logic Premier Division for next season when they comfortably beat Western Stars in a promotion/relegation play-off match yesterday.

Bottom of the division a fortnight ago, Cleveland beat Stars in a play-off for the second time in three years after dismissing them for just 148 and then reaching their target in 29.1 overs.

Victory means that Cleveland will have something else to celebrate when they march the Eastern Counties Cup on September 26.

For Stars’ players the disappointment of another unsuccessful promotion bid was difficult to swallow, after their season fell apart with rainouts in August that cost them automatic promotion.

“Going into county next year you don’t want to be playing at a lower level in First Division and then trying to prepare yourself to play at a higher level in county,” said a relieved Allan Douglas Jr, the Cleveland captain who smashed 44 off 28 balls to take his team to the brink of victory after Stars fought back with two quick wickets to make it 72 for three.

“I’m pretty excited to be staying up and looking forward to building off this and not being in this predicament but actually fighting for the league title next year.”

Douglas, who lost four balls with straight-driven sixes over the southern boundary, hit five sixes and a four in a 64-run stand with Jason Anderson for the fourth wicket.

Anderson scored 27 at No 4 after Treadwell Gibbons stroked 42 at the top of the innings after putting on 43 for the first wicket with Damon Rabain.

Earlier Stars found runs difficult to come by even though a back injury to Dennis Musson, one of Cleveland’s main strike bowlers, meant that he only bowled 3.1 overs.

Stars, sent in by Douglas, lost wickets in the ninth, twelfth and fifteenth overs with only 25 runs on the board. By the 22nd over Stars had slumped further to 59 for five before a sixth-wicket stand of 38 in seven overs between Clay Darrell and Rohan Davis briefly gave them hopes of a respectable total.

Darrell, the son of Clay Smith, the Cleveland coach, was the top scorer for Stars with 38 and after the stand was broken, the last four wickets fell for 51 runs in 11 overs.

“Today was a hard battle, we had a hiccup in the middle of the match when Clay Darrell buckled down and built up a partnership and we ran into a bit of a problem,” said Douglas, who is in his first season as Cleveland captain.

“On that track you had to bowl your best out there, bowl in the right areas in order to get guys out.

“We batted well with Treadwell Gibbons scoring 42 and myself coming in at five and scoring 40-odd. Earlier our bowlers did their job, but Musson hurt his back and had to go off, while Peter [Philpott] got hit on his chin third ball of the match going for a catch, so we had some setbacks.”

Philpott led the Cleveland bowling with three for seven while Douglas also had some success with his spin, taking three for 45 and Shaki Darrell two for 26.

“Coming off the St George’s game we were really confident coming into this game, though they had us in a spot of bother earlier today,” Douglas said.

“They are a good team and just need some discipline and structure.

“Rain hurt them with automatic promotion, but rain also hurt us. This was only the third toss I’ve won this season, another was in county and last weekend against St George’s.”