Devon name 15-man squad for T20 double-header against Gloucestershire 2nd XI

James Burke - operating for Devon again this season

DEVON have named a 15-man squad for Sunday’s Twenty20 double-header against Gloucestershire 2nd XI at Bovey Tracey.

The new Unicorns T20 competition gets under way over the May Bank Holiday with back-to-back mini-festivals against Cornwall in Truro then Dorset at Sidmouth.

Devon will play Cornwall twice on Bank Holiday Sunday and Dorset twice the day after.

Bad weather disrupted Devon’s hope of a double-header dress rehearsal against the University of Exeter and scuppered a game against Somerset 2nd XI at Sidmouth.

So Sunday’s match is Devon’s one and only chance to get some match practice in before the serious stuff starts a week later.

Significant selections in the squad who didn’t feature last year in short-format cricket are James Burke, Bovey Tracey’s Toby Codd, Gary Chappell, George Benton and Joe Hagan-Burt.

Burke, the former Somerset and Surrey all-rounder, is back in action for Devon having left the professional game.

Codd, the leading wicket-taker in the Devon Premier Division last summer, only played three-day cricket for Devon in 2017.

Chappell was a regular one-day performer for Devon between 2012-14 until making himself unavailable, After two hugely successful seasons with bat and ball for Bradninch, he has returned to the fold.

Benton a pace bowler who bats down the order, featured in one three-day game last season. Twenty-nine league wickets at around 22 each have earned him a crack.

Hagan-Burt has only recently returned from a winter in Australia where he has been working on his game at the Darren Lehmann Academy in South Australia.

Among the players unavailable are Bovey Tracey’s all-rounder Matt Golding, who has yet to return from a winter in Australia playing club cricket, and Sidmouth seam bowler Scott Barlow.

Devon: J J Bess (Sidmouth), R J Woodman (Taunton Deane), A W R Barrow, B G F Green (both Exeter), L J Lewis (Sidmouth), J E Burke (Plymouth), T A Lammonby (Exeter), G R Chappell (Bradninch), Z G G Bess (Sidmouth), J O Hagan-Burt (Plymouth), J A Stephens (Falmouth), J R Popham (North Devon), T R J Codd, H M Whitlock (both Bovey Tracey), G Benton (Paignton).