CAPTAIN Jake Wakelin wants Witham Cricket Club to be challenging for the Marshall Hatchick Two Counties Championship title this year.

Wakelin is set for his fourth season in charge of Witham’s first team and feels after three years of “knocking on the door” at the top of the division one table, they can make club history in 2018.

After second and third places in Wakelin’s first two seasons as captain Witham ended up fifth last year in a season where a slow first half was followed by a strong finish and the skipper feels they have the capability to go all the way this year.

“I think we can be challenging for the title, he said. “I’ve been hearing some rumours that some of the Suffolk clubs are having players come in so others will be strong, but we feel we are strong as well.

“We didn’t perform as we were hoping last year - it was a season of two halves.

“We started slowly and were towards the bottom at the halfway stage, but we finished strongly and we believe we are one of the strongest units in the Two Counties League.

“We had been knocking on the door with second and third-place finishes in the two years before that, we’ve added strong players to our squad this year and we have young players like Michael Godwin who have had good division one experience now.

“So we feel we can challenge for the title and hopefully do something that the club has never done before.

“However, we know after last year that a good start is important and we’ll be looking to do well in our first game.”

Witham start their campaign with a home game against Mistley on Saturday.

They had been due to travel to newly-promoted Ipswich this weekend, but the wet weather and subsequent soggy pitch conditions have led the league to delay the start of action by a week and postponed games will now be played on September 15.

Wakelin said it had been just Matt Anderson who had departed from last year’s squad - to join division one rivals Maldon - but he was pleased to have strengthened with two new additions who he felt would help them press for the title.

He added: “Things have been good so far; the boys have been working hard in training since the start of January and we have a couple of new guys who have come in.

“Greg Stephens has joined us from Colchester.

“He’s a left arm spinner and someone who played at Witham a couple of years ago and he just wanted a new challenge so he has come over and he’ll be a really good asset for us with his spin bowling.

“And we’re also very pleased to have James Smith come in as well.

“He’s a batter who has been up north for a while and played at a decent level in Nottinghamshire, but he and his family were a part of Witham before he went away so he’s someone who is well known to us.

“I think both James and Greg will fit in really well as they are both known to us already and having a close-knit group is part of what we are about.

“We are not a club who go out signing any old Tom, Dick and Harry to play.

“We like players to know us and fit in with our club ethos.

“We’ll also hopefully have Leroy Facey back this year.

“He was only able to play once for us last season but he’s been training with us this year and I’m hoping to have him back in the team.”