Devon Cricket Board - Pens have plan for promotion

Pens have plan for promotion

A LITLE improvement will go a long way at Ipplepen as they chase a long-awaited promotion to the B Division.

The Pens seem to have everything in place to support cricket at a higher level – a flourishing youth section and three Saturday league sides, never mind their South Devon League commitments on a Sunday.

But promotion keeps eluding them, although last season’s appalling weather was crueller to Pens than any other team in the 1^st XI competition. No one else had as many as eight matches called off.

An improvement in the weather will help, but there’s nothing skipper Keith Wakeham can do to keep the clouds away.

Providing the weather holds the key to going up is consistency of performance.

“Batting, that’s where we need to be more consistent,” said Wakeham.

“Moriz Hartmann had more than 500 runs last season and we had three in the 200s – my lad Sam, Dave Harris and Jack Lewis.

“Our youngsters are all a year older and more experienced and I hope we will see a few more runs this season.”

New to Moor Lane this season are the Powell brothers – Seb and Issac from Kingskeswell – and University of Exeter all-rounder Matt Nicholls.

Off-spinner Tom Dyer has returned from Bovey Tracey and opening bat Rachit Lakhmani is due over from Calcutta a month of so into the season.

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