PURTON skipper Aaron Lee hopes an unscheduled week off does not halt his team’s early-season momentum in WEPL Wiltshire.

Lee’s men kicked off the new campaign with back-to-back victories in but were denied the chance to make it three on the bounce last weekend when the whole of the WEPL fixture list was washed out.

The rain-offs meant Purton remain second in the table, just three points behind early pace-setters Marshfield ahead of Saturday’s match at home to Malmesbury.

Lee says confidence is still sky high within the camp despite the unplanned break and is eager to see his team pick up where they left off in the seven-wicket win at home to Westbury & District a fortnight ago.

“There was a lot of rain around last weekend and I don’t think any game was played to a finish, so you can take comfort from the fact no one is going to pick up too many points and you are not going to lose too much ground,” said Lee.

“We had a good session on Wednesday night and I think for some of our guys it was the first time they’d picked up a bat since the Westbury win nine or 10 days previously.

“It’s important that we got some work done and found our rhythm again as you don’t want to lose the momentum we have built up.

“The buzz around the club is still great, everyone is riding high at the moment and we are looking forward to getting back out there and playing cricket again and trying to continue our winning run.”

Purton have excelled in all departments so far this summer – as well as taking 10 wickets in both of their matches, they also have the most batting bonus points in the division.

Lee added: “Keeping up the pressure is one of the things we always talk about and when you get the opposition on the ropes it’s important we keep them there.

“We have to keep doing what we have been doing this weekend and hopefully that will help us come out with the right result.”

Purton will be without key players Tom Bowler and Santhosh Iyengar against Malmesbury but Lee is confident their absence will not be felt too hard.

“Tom has been an integral part of the team since for the last two or three years since he came back from Corsham but Deepack (Ramani) is not a bad guy to come in,” said Lee.

“He has scored a more than 200 runs in two games for the seconds and we know he can take it to any attack on his day.

“Sam normally opens the bowling but Imran (Ashraf) is coming in with a lot of experience and he is more than up to the task.

“We have got great strength in depth at the moment so when guys are missing it doesn’t really hurt us too much.”