Cornwall hope for a change in the weather

Cornwall hope to finally get their Minor Counties Trophy season under way tomorrow with Bedfordshire making their first visit to the county.

The game at Truro's Boscawen Park gets under way at noon, an hour later than normal. It is to allow the visitors to travel down from an overnight stopover in the Exeter area.

They will then stay in the South West for a second night in order to play Devon on Bank Holiday Monday at Bovey Tracey, reducing travel costs.

Cornwall have had both games to date in the competition abandoned without a ball being bowled.

The tie at St Austell was called off a fortnight ago and thanks to a wise decision by the Devon officials, a journey to Instow last Sunday was aborted when the game was called off on Saturday evening.

With all four games in the group having been cancelled to date it has not quite become a penalty shoot out in football terms – but it is not far off.

With only two games left to play Cornwall know a poor result tomorrow could effectively end their qualification hopes.

They complete the group with a difficult looking away game in Hertfordshire next Sunday at North Mymms. Bedfordshire and Oxfordshire are best placed at the moment having only had one cancellation and a bye. Oxfordshire play Herts at Stanlake tomorrow.

Cornwall and Bedfordshire have never met in the Championship and the only previous Trophy meeting was eight years ago at Luton. That straight knock-out game saw Cornwall lose by 104 runs.

Tom Sharp, Chris Hunkin and David Roberts are the only survivors from the tie and Roberts has been recalled to a 12 man squad for tomorrow.

In the only change, he takes the place of Keith Parsons who, for the third year, is due to captain the ECB Unicorns, who take on Derbyshire at Wormsley.

Roberts warmed up nicely last weekend with a century against Troon. Matt Rowe is also in good form having hit 124 in the same game.

There are no fewer than five current Premier League captains featuring in the Cornwall line up. In addition to Tom Sharp, Rowe, Matt Robins, Chris Hunkin and Kelvin Snell are all leading their club sides this summer.

Cornwall (from): Tom Sharp (Capt), Matt Robins, Matthew Rowe, Dan Davis, David Roberts, Chris Hunkin, Alex Smeeth, Kelvin Snell, Andrew Libby, Sam Hockin, Antony Angove, Taylor Williams (wk).