Montgomery Cricket Club’s second team captain says his team are ‘embracing the challenge’ after their surprise promotion to Reserve Division One, Shropshire’s top flight for reserve outfits.

George Corfield admitted his team’s form had exceeded all expectations after expecting a tough battle to stay in the league, but he paid tribute to the outstanding attitude of his team after they eventually finished runners up.

He said: “Going into the season the aim was to make sure we remained in Division Two, however as the season progressed we found ourselves in a title race and in the end we were perhaps disappointed not to win the league.

“That said it was a marvellous campaign, with some outstanding team and individual performances, and when you look over the course of 20 matches we definitely deserved to go up.

“Next season is going to be tough, there are some excellent teams in Reserve Division One, but we will embrace the challenge and look forward to playing local rivals Alberbury and Knockin, while testing ourselves against big clubs like Worfield, Wem and Whitchurch.”

Tom Corfield, who was the club’s leading run scorer last season with 578 runs, was also looking ahead to the new campaign.

“I am really looking forward to the 2018 campaign and seeing how we fare at a higher standard of cricket.

“We know it is going to be a huge challenge but we have got a really strong squad and a good mixture of youth and experience.”