Pre-season training begins for Keswick Cricket Club this weekend.

As preparations for the club’s 2019 campaign get under way, players will converge on the sports hall at Keswick School.

The club has organised six indoor practice evenings, all taking place from 5-7pm, starting this Sunday. They will also be held next Sunday and, then, on March 3, 10, 17 and 31.

After that, Keswick will move to its award-winning Fitz Park ground for outdoor sessions which begin on Tuesday, April 2.

New players are welcome to come along to Keswick’s training sessions.

Training will include fitness, skills and nets and will be led by ECB-qualified coaches, using the sports hall’s excellent facilities and other equipment, including bowling machines.

The aim is to make sure the sessions are enjoyable, as well as skills-based, and to set the tone for what promises to be an exciting season at Keswick.

Meanwhile, popular player-coach Geeth Kumara, from Sri Lanka, is returning to the club for his eighth successive season.

Once again, the influential 30-year-old all-rounder will form part of Keswick’s first-team for their campaign in the newly-named Cumbria Cricket League.

Keswick’s first Premier Division game will be at home to Lindal Moor on Saturday, April 20 as they look to improve on their seventh-placed finish last year.

Elsewhere, the club’s second-team and third-team will compete in the Eden Valley Cricket League’s First Division and Sunday League, respectively, while the club has a 30-strong womens’ squad that will, this year, be taking part in competitive fixtures for the first time.

Then, at youth level, Keswick field an Under-19 T20 squad - called the LakeHawks - and a number of junior teams as well as junior coaching.

In addition to a full league programme, Keswick is playing host this season to a wide range of representative fixtures.

This will include a women’s softball festival on June 30, a tournament for blind and partially-sighted cricketers from across the North of England on July 16, as well as a T20 tournament on August 4 which will feature two teams from a touring party of more than 50 players and supporters from Victoria, Australia. They will be staying in Keswick for a week while taking in the Ashes Test matches.

There will also be an ECB Cricket World Cup family day on June 9, a Cumberland Over-50s match on June 12, Cumbria Schools’ Under-12 and Under-14 finals’ on July 4 and Cumbria Schools’ Kwik Cricket finals a day later.