Alex Clements, who has taken over from Will Harrison as captain of Ottery St Mary 1st XI

By CONRAD SUTCLIFFE

OTTERY St Mary will have a new 1st XI captain for next summer’s campaign in the Tolchards Devon League C Division East.

Will Harrison has stepped aside after three seasons at the helm and passed the tiller to Alex Clements.

Clements (28), a graduate of the club’s youth section, cut his captaincy teeth skippering the 2nd XI in 2017.

Jody Clements – the new captain’s brother and a former 1st XI captain himself – will be the number two.

There’s a new captain for the 2nd XI too as Dan Flower has taken over from Dan Jeacock.

All three appointments were confirmed at the club’s annual meeting earlier this week.

Skipper Clements was part of the team that finished in the C West top three last season.Dan Flower, who has taken over the 2nd XI captaincy at Ottery

The new captain wants to regain B Division status, but accepts there is some work to be done first.

“We ‘burgled;’ third place last season thanks to a little bit of luck along the way,” said Clements.

“To go any higher we need to be a bit more consistent and probably need to recruit a couple of players.”

High on Clements’ list of priorities is finding a replacement for Aussie run machine Ollie West, who is not returning for a third season with Ottery.

“OIlie is staying in Brisbane to complete his degree so we have to find a way of replacing his runs, roughly 1,700 in the past two seasons,” said Clements.

The 2020 season may be more than five months away, but Clements has already booked pre-season nets.

“Winter training will take place every Sunday in March from 6-7pm at the Devon Cricket Centre on the University of Exeter campus,” said Clements.