MAGHULL HOPE DONOVAN HAS PELLING POWER

Date: 7th February 2013

A Paul Edwards copyright exclusive for L&DCC Official Website.

....winter business.....

As befitting a club which likes to do its winter business with maximum efficiency and minimum fuss, Maghull have signed 19-year-old left-handed Australian batsman Donovan Pell but do not expect to add or lose anyone else before the season gets going in a couple of months' time.

"No one's left and no one's arrived, apart from Donovan," said skipper John Ring. "We signed him because we needed a batter and he fitted the profile of the sort of player we wanted. He's young, he's keen to coach, he's a good batsman and the costs of bringing him over were within our budget.

"We've tried to persuade one or two other people to join us but we don't have the pulling power of some clubs and there's a lot of captains after the few players who become available."

Maghull finished ninth in the Premier League in 2012, a perfectly respectable showing for a promoted club, but Ring is hoping for an improvement from some of his team this summer.

"Sairaj Patel batted well for his 536 runs, as did Andy Hewitt to score 377," he said. "In addition I thought Sabah Ghaus (29 wickets and 188 runs) performed well with both bat and ball, often in difficult circumstances.

"As for the other players, a few of them have been working hard and hopefully they'll have a little more to offer - and I certainly include myself in that group. We've also got a young leg-spinner, Liam Johnson, who's working on his batting and will be one to look out for, although the idea at the moment is that we will introduce him into first team cricket quite gradually."

The Old Hall Field team has been no stranger to the joys of promotion or the disappointments of relegation since entering the Bridging Finance Solutions Liverpool Competition in 1999, but Ring believes he noticed a change in the top division last summer.

"I don't think overseas players dominated the Premier League quite as much as I remember them doing," he said. "In the past some teams were very reliant on their imports and I thought it was a good thing that people like Mark Williams at Rainford, along with a number of other cricketers, played leading roles for their sides."