WESTBURY-on-Severn captain Greg Artus must find a way to match their impressive bowling attack with better batting form to compete in Division One of the County League.

Artus saw his side lose by 42 runs at Redmarley on Saturday to start the Forest cricket season, as Westbury were all out for 98.

“We bowled really well on Saturday but we just fell short with the bat,” he said.

“We were unlucky and I thought we should have won but 140 is a tricky number to chase and there was a little bit of complacency.

“Westbury are always known for struggling with chasing so we’d normally choose to bat first but with it being the first game of the season the greens were wet so we wanted to bowl.”

Having lost talismanic batsman Jon Tegg to Corse & Staunton, Artus wants to ensure his men hold up their end of the bargain when facing opposition bowlers.

“The amount of runs he scored and his experience was huge for us,” he added.

“He spend four or five great years with us and we’re thankful for all he did.

“We’re aiming to stay in this division again. We have always competed with our bowling attack and kept teams to below 200 runs most weeks.

“If we’re getting the runs too that’ll be key.

“I’ve started with a few last week and I want to take responsibility throughout the season.

“Dan Jarvis, who joined us this summer having just moved to the area, has looked good in pre-season and Dan Anderson should help with a good shift too.

“We’ve always had that decent batting record of hitting 30s and 40s each but we just want to get that up to the higher levels like 80s and 100s.”