Josh Hanley, a 21-year old opening bowler, arrived from Australia last week. After a winter of flagrant courting from both parties, and persistent rumours of his retirement from all forms of the game, in the end the family business prevented Jordan Waugh from returning to Hadleigh for a third season – but he did us a massive favour by recommending Josh, a member of his club in New South Wales.

Hopefully he can be just as valuable to the team as Jordan, although it would surely be unfair to expect him to keep the local economy afloat in quite the same way.

Carl Holder captains the first team for the second season, with high hopes of a promotion challenge from Two Counties division 2 after finishing fourth last year.

To an already strong batting line up he has added Ally Douglas, who joins us from Copdock and OIs, and with the arrival of Josh the bowling looks strong too, with Jock Speedman, Michael Howe and Tim Rix all vying for the new ball.

Meanwhile, with a lack of English players involved in the Indian Premier League, the rumour is that Kalpesh Ellis turned down a six-figure offer from the Chennai Super Kings.

The figures that matter most to the Pesh, of course, are the number of maximums he has compared to his brother. As his T-shirt says, he 'Lives for the Six'. I will endeavour to keep you updated on the inter-Ellis six-hit league as the season progresses!

So far the first team have won one and lost one in the league. A good fightback against Woodbridge was followed by a day to forget at Witham last weekend, and they will be looking to bounce back at home to Kelvedon on Saturday.

In the Seconds, Dave Mann takes over from Gary Girling as skipper, more than 20 years after he was first in charge of the Twos as a teenager.

Dave has made it very clear that he expects much better availability from his squad, after a remarkable 44 players were used last season.

The ranks have been swelled by the arrival of a number of players from Elmsett, who were forced to fold over the winter. Martin Grayling, Steven Tampion, Dave Bird, Nadie Abdohl and Tom Piddington should all be key players for Dave. The objective is clear – promotion to division 5.

Tim Rix leads the Sunday XI in Hunts County Bats division 3, and the season has started superbly, with three wins out of three, including the convincing defeat of Bury last Sunday.

We had run out of leather by the third over, after Nikhil Ellis smashed two new balls clean out of the Victory Ground, but we got one back and proceeded to have fun in the sun.

It's always a great feeling to win at Bury and the prospects are good for the Sundays.

The winter junior coaching sessions at Ipswich School went very well.

We are running under-11 and under-13 league teams this year, and an elite group of youngsters will benefit from dedicated coaching sessions on Friday nights with coaches Aaron Brown, Simon Manthorpe and Craig Burrows.