Weston CC hosted an inter-club match with players from the seconds, thirds, fourth and fifths to open the new season.

Team Smith and Team Chambers took to the field with 14 players on each side to give everyone a chance to bat or bowl.

Team Chambers won the toss and elected to bat, with the experienced duo of Andy Fear and Russell Green finding runs hard to come by due to accurate bowling by Alice Bird and Georgia Tulip.

A change of bowling brought the wicket of Si Green who was caught of the bowling of Jake Richards.

Green came and went quickly when he was bowled by Aadi Potdar.

The evergreen Fear continued to accumulate runs until he retired on 39.

Eoin Austen was then bowled for six by Jake Richards bringing James Turner to the crease.

Turner played with assurance and hit some quality shots while the experienced John Davidson, Martyn Chambers and Mike Lee all departed cheaply due to the off spin of Jack Trego.

This brought Charlie Cunningham to the crease and he and Turner took the total to 157 from 35 overs.

Turner was finally bowled out in the last over for 48 with Cunningham on 19 not out.

Team Smith got off to a flying start thanks to Dom Mayo and Fred Bemand, who was the first wicket to fall for a hard hitting nine when he was bowled by Cunningham.

Trego played some lovely shots before being caught for 13.

Potdar joined Trego and took the game away from Team Chambers.

Despite retiring on 47, Dom Mayo played with authority before Jason Neave then hit a quick 21 before also retiring.

John Mayo joined Potdar, who had moved into the 30s and after a change of bowling, brought the wicket of the club chairman after he was bowled by Davidson.

Turner joined Potdar and with nearly a 50-year age gap they saw Team Smith over the line with four overs to spare.

It was a great run out for all the teams and showed the strength in depth Weston has and third-team captain Ian Smith said it was “absolutely brilliant” to see cricket being played again.

He added: “What stood out is the 13-year-old, they have all grown up a little bit, physically, and they did not look out of place in the men’s game at all.

“It’s great for the club probably about have half of a dozen of these. Half my third team is made up of 13-year-olds and they are playing every week against very experienced cricketers and standing shoulder to shoulder against them.

“We’ve got a very strong youth set-up here that all play county level and in our team we have a superb youth team set-up. They all played really well and dominated the game.”

With pre-season in full flow there are two sets of friendlies left ahead of the new season starting in next month and Smith said it was “really pleasing” to see a whole campaign of cricket following last year’s delayed start.

“We had an idea that we would have a good prompt start this season and it’s turned out to be perfect," he added.

“Starting training and these pre-season warm-up matches is great and everything is looking on track for May 1, which is the very first league match of the season and it all kicks off.

“Hopefully that will happen and we’ve got a very strong group of teams at Weston. Five Saturday teams and we have got a very strong, particular, year where each team should be very, very strong.

“We are very lucky in that sense and that’s all because of the youth have got more coming through at the moment.”