Two current England internationals will take the field for Caldy once again this summer - this time, in Division One.
The Wirral club - aided by England learning disability captain Chris Edwards and Dan Hamm, who bowls left-arm spin for the national physical disability side - earned promotion last year after a season-long struggle at the top of Division Two.
Now captain Mark Wilkie, who takes over from Harry Daniel-Jones, is determined to show they belong at a higher level.
“The job this year is to establish ourselves in Division One, because we’ve not been there for a number of years,” he said.
“But we’re well capable of surprising a few people.”
Key to this will be all-rounder Martyn Evans, who starred at the top level for New Brighton for the best part of 20 years before joining Caldy as player-coach last year.
Injury restricted him to two appearances - now he’s fit again and, according to Wilkie, like a new signing.
“He’s one of the top players in the Comp over the last 20 years,” said the skipper.
“He looks like he’s going to be fit to play this year, so that’s almost like having two brand new players.
“Chris Edwards is another player who I think is playing a level below what he could play at - so we’ve got a good base to build from.
“We know it’s going to be tougher, we know the standard is higher in Division One.
“But the gulf isn’t that big. We’re confident with keeping the same team, and we’ve got some good youngsters coming through.”
Sri Lankan import Malinga Amarasinghe won’t be returning to Telegraph Road - but the club have signed 19-year-old South African batter Corne Nel.
Wilkie said: “Hopefully he’ll buck up some of the older players’ ideas when it comes to attitude and commitment.”
The priority for the first XI this year is to stay in Division One - but Wilkie says he’s “quietly confident” of a bit more than that.
He added: “We can do better than a lot of teams expect us to.
“There were a lot of good teams last year in Division Two and I don’t think there’s much of a gap between those teams and what we have in Division One.
“We’ll soon find out - but I’m quietly confident that we’ll be able to hold our own.”
