The Sat XI commence their title defence at the now traditional venue of Box CC, the home of the first match for the past 3 years. The Bears had two slender victories over Box during the 2017 campaign with yet more Jay Morris heroics with the bat in the away game, backing up ‘Big T’s’ metronomic bowling spell of 9 overs for just 16 runs. In the home victory the vice-captain again proved his worth with another 4 wickets after both Wilson and Newman had hit 40s. (The news that talismanic all-rounder, and former captain Richard Foley has left the club to return to Corsham has filtered through – we wish him well with his new challenge, we’ll miss playing against one of the undoubted top players in the 1st Division)
The skipper is able to award debuts to a number of new recruits with Jack ‘The Captain’ Mainwaring becoming a Saturday Bear after finding new employment involving no Saturday hours, we look forward to playing, and seeing him hit many runs in the coming months. He is also able to offer the unveilings of Bath University students Tom Harris and Henry Smith both very competent and promising young cricketers – we welcome you both.
The skipper is again without the express services of George ‘My Boy’ Ellis who has taken up a more senior administrative role within the club, Simon ‘Rimmer’ Porter teaching Hungry Hippos to 6 year olds (his new warm up drill), Joe De Souza who is studying (a first year who studies!), Michael Smyth, looking for new arguments on the Bath Live website, Josh Parkyn, working on his tan (the world’s whitest legs) on the Iberian Peninsula and finally Big South African, Tony Deoliveria – Tony, please phone me!
The big news that just wouldn’t go away in the closed season was what was happening with Josh Sutton and Ross Newman, it has now become clear that both players have decided to test themselves at a higher level, we wish them all the very best with their new challenge and hope to see them back as Bears again one day – they’ll going to be massively missed (especially in the bar after games!).
As ever, any support would be most welcome at Box CC, a lovely ground and a great bunch of lads.
