He had demonstrated passages of potential with the bat – particularly through knocks through the mid-twenties and early thirties in recent weeks – but was yet to post a big score to complement his 27 wickets.

Until last Saturday.

The Portland-raised star produced a career-best total of 104 in Creek’s round 14 clash with Brierly-Christ Church, despite being forced to retire at the milestone.

Elford said the century, which was part of a weekend which also yielded a hat-trick and five-wicket haul as well as a Twenty20 premiership for the club, felt like a blur.

“I was meant to start work at 4.30pm, but I must have been on about 80 and our captain Cam (Williams) called work and said ‘he’s going to be a little late, you’ve got to give him another half an hour,” Elford said.

“It felt like a bit of a blur, I was at work later that night and thought ‘did that really happen?’.”

Elford arrived at Jetty Flat with housemate and long-time friend Josh Campbell at the end of last year after a stint in Geelong.

He was one of several inclusions, which also featured Williams and Sri Lankan-born stars in Shashan Silva, Isuru ‘Izzy’ Yaddehige and Woshantha ‘Lucky’ Silva.

Elford said Creek still needed to build on aspects of their game if they were to sew up two-day premiership glory in March.

“I’m happy (with where they’re at) but I’m one of those players who always wants to be better. We work so hard on our fielding but that’s something we have to keep improving to be on top at the end.

“I’ve always felt fielding is your main aspect. If you can save 30 runs in the field, it’s 30 runs less you have to get. It really narrows it down to the fact if you field well, you’re likely to win a game.

“We all know there’s no point doing what we’ve down throughout the pre-season and through the year if we’re not going to keep pushing ourselves to the end of the season.”