Oli Lockey will captain new boys Bourton Vale as they prepare for their first game in the Cheltenham Premier T20.

The club, who will be known as Bourton Vale Vikings in the midweek competition, travel to Dumbleton and they will be hoping to make a quickfire start.

That won’t be easy because Dumbleton Dynamite are the defending champions, 12 months after finishing runners-up to Hatherley Hurricanes in the first year of the competition.

But Bourton are certainly up for the challenge and chairman Kevin Langley is delighted that his club will compete in what is now an eight-strong competition.

“We’ve developed well as a club over the past couple of years,” said Langley. “We’ve got a few more players and quite a few are younger players.

“The younger players are mad keen, they want to play as much cricket as they can and from our point of view it’s bringing competitive cricket to the club in midweek.”

Langley expects maybe six or seven of the club’s West of England Premier League players to be involved tomorrow, including Lockey who has enjoyed an excellent start to their Gloucestershire Division campaign.

They’ve won their opening two games under the captaincy of Darrel Williams and Lockey, who joined the club from Chedworth ahead of the 2022 season, has made important runs in the middle order.

“He’s bang in form,” continued Langley. “He’s made a 50 and a 70 for us this season.

“The Premier T20 is a decent competition, we want to do well in it but we want to keep it fun.”

This year’s final will take place at Cheltenham College during the Cheltenham Cricket Festival on Friday 18^th July.

The other five teams in the competition are Cheltenham Spartans, Charlton Super Kings, Tewkesbury Royals, University of Gloucestershire Giants and Civil Sixers.