NEW Launceston Cricket Club first team captain, Kevin Worth, is ‘looking to improve on last season’ after being appointed to the role on a full-time basis at the club’s annual general meeting recently.

Worth, 41, who is well-known around the local scene as a hard-hitting middle-order batsman, took over the reigns in June from South African Robert Mutch after a failure to win any of their opening ten games following promotion to County Division One.

However, the final 12 games saw a remarkable recovery as they won seven times to finish a place above the dreaded bottom three.

He will now look to ensure there’s no repeat of a relegation battle in 2019.

Worth said: “When I took over for the second half of last season I quite enjoyed doing it. The results were pretty good and with everyone agreeing to keep me on I quite fancied doing it for the whole season.

“I’m quite a calming influence and I like everyone to enjoy it and make sure the team spirit is in a good place.

“I’ve got 25 years of adult cricket experience and I’ve been vice-captain for about seven years so I feel like I know the game and what I want to do with the team. I’m also fortunate to have several players in the team who have either captaincy experience or like to express their opinions, which I’ll take into consideration.

“However I’m very happy to have Sam Pengelly as my vice-captain. It’s well deserved after several good seasons with bat and ball.”

After flirting with danger right up until the penultimate weekend, Worth hopes that there will be no such worries when the season ends next September.

He said: “The goal will be to improve on last year, we got off to a terrible start. I think we underestimated the difference between Division Two and County One and with us missing a few players at the start we struggled. But if we can get off to a good start, we should be able to obtain a solid, mid-table finish.”

Last year’s main issues were the absence of a top-order batsman and a spinner, and those are the two areas where Worth hopes they can add.

He said: “We struggle with strength in depth. If we can put out a full side we can compete with any team in the league but when we’re two or three players short in certain positions then we struggle a bit. So we’re in talks at the moment with three or four players to strengthen the squad and also the quality.

“We’re looking to add another spinner. The spinners did alright for us last year but they were very inexperienced. Another one also helps with the over-rate which we struggled with at times.

“We’re also looking to strengthen the batting as well with a solid batsman. We’ve got a lot of attacking flair in our side which sometimes was curtailed by having to play a more defensive role in the team. So they’re the two main targets.

With Camborne coming down from the ECB Cornwall Premier League and Ludgvan, who finished third in 2017 but were relegated due to ECB Clubmark issues ahead of last summer, coming up along with St Austell seconds from Division Two, Worth knows they won’t be able to afford another awful start.

He said: “I don’t expect any easy games, Ludgvan will be tough coming up as will Camborne coming down. Troon and Helston will also be strong, but on the whole it’ll be a lot tougher.”

With the season starting even earlier this year on Easter Weekend (Saturday, April 20), Worth is hoping to hit the ground running.

He said: “We’ll run nets after Christmas where any interested new players are more than welcome to come along and we hope for a better turnout from the existing players than in recent years and as we get closer to the season push for training to make sure we’re ready to go on April 20.”

The first team will also be boosted by the fact the seconds will play for the first time in Division Three East for the first time since 2009; meaning they’ll face four sides in St Blazey, Boconnoc, Callington seconds and Newquay seconds, who were all in Division Two last summer.

Worth continued: “It’s a big help with the seconds playing in Division Three because they’ll be playing good teams like St Blazey week in week out so when they’re called upon to step up, the gap won’t be as big.

“Also towards the end of last season when we were short, we started to bring through some of the juniors and it goes to show there’s a pathway from the juniors to the first team.

“If anyone performs consistently well then there’s an opportunity for them to make it into the first team to play a good level of cricket.”

The rest of the meeting went as expected. Matthew Bloomfield, Paul Bunn and Emma Barnes will once again skipper the seconds, thirds and ladies respectively while Phil Spry remains as chairman.

Bunn will have the task of bringing on the youngsters in a 12-team Division Six East.

Due to league restructuring, they were relegated from Division Five last summer so should be confident of winning a number of games.

They will play 18 games with four random fixtures drawn up after they play seven of the teams both home and away.

They start their campaign on Saturday, May 4 and end a fortnight earlier than the other men’s sides on Saturday, August 24.

The Ladies will once again compete in the Cornwall Women’s League where they’ll look to build on their best ever season in 2018.

They finished third and will hope for a similar outcome once more.

The juniors section, which always attracts excellent numbers, are already doing indoor training and will move outside in the spring.

However, arguably the best news for the club is that the long-awaited kitchen and bar refurbishment will start in January, which will increase the bar size and kitchen size to make it more user friendly and available for bigger functions.

Launceston are also planning on doing more club events to show the local community what they can provide to the local area.

They are also looking into the possibility of running an early season sponsors’ day to say thank you to everyone who supports the club.

It is also hoped that a new players’ coaching rota on Friday nights takes shape. Match fees and memberships will remain the same.

To find out more about what’s going on out at Lawhitton, search ‘Launceston Cricket Club’ on Facebook.