Young talent giving Swindon Cricket Club excitement early in season

Swindon Cricket Club chairperson Daniel Harris discussed an incredibly positive start to the season across a range of teams for the club.

With the late Spring having arrived, the cricket season has begun and it has been an exciting start across the five senior teams, youth section, and new women’s side for Swindon.

Harris said: “We are now into the league season and we are playing across five senior Saturday sides and that has been really good with a lot of young players coming through.

“We have not started how we would like to, with the first team losing their first three against sides we expect to be at the top of the league, but we had success in the T20 reaching the next round by beating Winsley and Trowbridge.

“In the second team, we have started strongly, a good win against Burbage and Easton away with our young players really standing up.

“The threes, fours, and fives have been a massive positive for us, just having that many teams out there on a Saturday, only three clubs in the county have that and it shows the membership we have.

“We might even have to look at getting another side, but the biggest limiting factor is ground availability, as I see us needing to add a sixth team and that is really exciting.”

A big theme of the start of the season has been the young players coming in and impacting the senior sides.

Harris said: “It amazes me every year that we go away for Winter and a large number of our juniors are representing Wiltshire and do a lot of indoor training and also grow quite a lot and then we come back for pre-season and the development they show is amazing.

“We have a number of young players from 13 to 21 that have played senior cricket and are really developing into the players that we hope will take the club forward.

“Our ambition has always been to play higher than Wiltshire through the development of our own players and that is why we invest in the facilities like we do.

“It is fantastic to see them coming through and becoming linchpins of the side, in my second team I don’t have any qualms about throwing the opening ball to a bowler who is 14 years old and knowing he is starting to develop the skills and temperament to deliver for us and regularly does.”