LAST season is going to be a tough act to follow for Wiltshire Cricket Club according to batsman Neil Clark but he has vowed to give it their best shot.

Having won the Western Division last summer and only narrowly missing out on being named champions of minor counties cricket, after losing to Staffordshire in the championship final, Neil Shardlow’s side have set the bar high ahead of this year’s campaign.

Clark though is hoping that the team can go one better this year and believes they have had good preparation.

“Obviously after such a good year it is always going to be hard to follow up,” said Clark.

“After the year previous we could only ever do better, so it is going to be tough to follow up what we did last year but I think it is important to show that we are going in the right direction.

“We wanted to win all our warm-up games but unfortunately we lost against Dorset, but we had a few people missing and the pitch was a hard pitch to bat on but there were still good things to take from it.

“After a hard fought win against Berkshire we are quite happy going into the game against Wales and we have got everyone coming back into the side so we should have our strongest team out."

Wiltshire begin their competitive season on Sunday against Wales MC as they travel to Newport for a group match in the Unicorns Knock out Trophy.

Clark is expecting a tough game but is hoping to kick off the season with a big score as he looks to catch the eye of one of the first class counties.

“They are a young side and they have a lot of ability so it is going to be a tough game,” he added.

“Personally I would like to follow on from last year, I had a good season and I would like to try and make a few more big scores and try and get myself in with one of the first class counties.

“I think as a team we want to go one better than last year.

“”Last year we had quite a tough group, especially in the three day games, and I think this year we probably have an easier group than last year.

“They are all going to be tough games but they are all teams that we think we are capable of beating.

“If we perform to our best I don’t think there are many teams that will beat us.”