PLYMOUTH pace pair Dan Goodey and Joe Hagan-Burt have to prove their fitness today if they are going to be considered for Devon’s Unicorns Championship game against Herefordshire.

Minor Counties cricket returns to the Mount Wise ground in Plymouth tomorrow after an absence of 17 summers.

Three Plymouth players are in the squad of 14 – spinner Matt Petherbridge is the third – which is a mixed blessing for the city side.

It’s 49 years since three or more Plymouth players were in the side at the same time, back in the days when the fixture list was less cluttered.

When Plymouth quartet Chris U’ren, John Swinburne, Tony Ward and Mike Woodward all played in the Devon side that beat Cornwall by five wickets, there was no such thing as Twenty20 cricket.

There is now and Plymouth are in this season’s Devon final at Budleigh Salterton on Sunday. A clash of fixtures Plymouth 1st XI captain John Varcoe would have preferred to avoid.

Goodey, who has been added to the squad, and Hagan-Burt have been carrying injuries for a couple of weeks and need to get through a quota of overs against Bovey Tracey to day to show Devon team boss Keith Donohue whether they are fit enough for three-day cricket.

“If both of them come through the league games ok then we can consider them for selection,” said Donohue.

The squad of 13 contains one wild-card pick in the shape of 16-year-old Millfield schoolboy Max Hancock, who bowls left-arm orthodox spin.

Hancock has only played six Premier Division games for Sidmouth, but Donohue has seen enough and heard what the county age-group coaches have to say about him to give him a go.

“Max turns the ball away from right-handed batsmen and that is a bowling option we have sorely missed so far,” said Donohue.

Devon drew their three-day opener against Wales at Sandford and lost to Cornwall at Werrington in round two.

Donohue said it would be wrong to read too much into either game.

“I suspect the players are as frustrated as I am by the results in our first two games,” said Donohue.

“We played well in both games and when things went against us, as they did on the first day against Cornwall, we came back strongly, which is what you want to see.

“Overall, our performances levels are good and if we can recapture most of what we have been doing then the moments of fortune in matches may start going our way.”

Mount Wise, which used to be the home ground of the United Services team in Plymouth, last staged a three-day game in 2001 when Devon defeated Oxfordshire. Highlight of the match was the double century scored by Devon batsman Bobby Dawson.

Devon (from): J J Bess (Sidmouth), M W Thompson (St Fagins), A W R Barrow (Exeter), J H J Mailling (Bovey Tracey), D R Pyle (Exmouth), Z G G Bess (Sidmouth), J O Hagan-Burt (Plymouth), J A Stephens (Falmouth), D J Goodey (Plymouth), M W Hancock (Sidmouth), J V King (North Devon), M J Petherbridge (Plymouth), T J R Codd (Bovey Tracey).

Herefordshire: M G Pardoe, I T Bullock, P I Burgoyne, D O Conway, T G Cummins, B A T S Ellis-Dabrowski, T A Hage, J P Harrison, J P McIlroy, A R Wilkinson, B J Twohig.

Umpires: R G B Allen, R C Hampshire.