For a relatively small village, Painswick has a big cricket club.

They run six senior teams – four on Saturdays, one on Sundays and one in midweek – as well as junior sides at under-11, 13 and 15 age groups.

Club chairman Ian Hogg has been with Painswick since the age of 13 – save for two years spent with Frocester in his late teens – and is as excited about the current campaign as he was 42 years ago when he first started playing for the club.

Painswick open their County League Division One season with a home game against Cheltenham 2nds on May 6 with Hogg saying: “We’re playing in a division a level below where we should be.

“Five years ago we were two divisions higher so to finish in the top two and win promotion this season is definitely the aim.”

New skipper and opening batsman Alex Jennings will be charged with leading the promotion push after taking over from Andy Edwards, who has stood down because of work commitments.

“Andy was a good captain and he transformed the club,” said Hogg. “He brought in a lot of young players – six of our first team are under-21.

“But we know Alex will do a good job. He stuck his hand up and said he wanted to do it and we’ve no qualms at all. He’s got the ideal personality to be captain.”

Jennings will be looking to the likes of Reece Morris to make early inroads into the opposition’s batting with the new ball while Tom Hayward is also expected to be a key player with his medium pacers.

The club are also looking forward to seeing how South African Simon Taylor, who has an English passport, develops in his first season at the club while they will again be hoping for big things from Uddipan Mukherjee when he arrives in the middle of June.

Hogg says that Mukherjee, an opening batsman, is also “a very good spinner” and last season scored three centuries in his short spell at the club.

By the time Mukherjee arrives in this country, the club will be hoping that new signing Jack Hobbis, a bowler who has joined from West Bromwich Dartmouth, will already have made his mark.

Hogg, meanwhile, is unlikely to be playing too many games himself this season. The former club captain, who describes himself as a “straight spinner”, said he would probably do the scoring although added he would play “if needed”.

Hogg is also the club groundsman and while he has plenty on his plate he said he had great support from “a very good committee who work very hard”.

Home for Painswick Cricket Club is Broadham Fields in Stroud Road, a ground owned by the rugby club.

It’s an arrangement that works well but when asked if the cricket club would like their own ground, he said: “We’d love to. The problem is finding a flat enough field in Painswick!”