FORMER Reading cricket captain David Hartley has been named in an England Over 50s squad to compete in an international tournament in Cape Town next month.

It’s the veteran spinner’s second tour, having gone to Sri Lanka two years ago.

He left Reading after the 2015 season and is now playing in north Devon.

His successor at Sonning Lane, fellow spinner Bobby Malik, left the club during the winter to rejoin Falkland, so Reading will have a different skipper for the third season in succession.

All-rounder Jack Beaven was expected to fill the vacancy, but he is now likely to leave the club as well, along with the majority of last season’s first team who were relegated from Division One of the Home Counties Premier League.

Former player Jeff Jones is leading the club’s bid to attract newcomers – a task which, I believe, is not proving too easy.

He is hoping to find ambitious youngsters keen to take on the challenge of helping to switch the club’s fortunes around moving forward.

  • BERKSHIRE cricketers have more than exceeded their target of £1,000 ahead of their run in the Wokingham Half-Marathon on Sunday.

Eight of them, including county captain James Morris and former Reading CC all-rounder Andy Rishton, are running, dressed at Super Heroes, to raise funds for African Build.

The players had targeted £1,000, but, following nearly 50 donations, their page on the Just Giving website yesterday showed the figure is up to a healthy £1,345 with more expected before Sunday.

  • FEW schools in Reading, or even Berkshire, do more to promote sport than Crosfields in Shinfield Road.

For several years they have been organising football, tag rugby and cross country running for primary schools.

Next up is the Under 9 rugby festival on March 3 which has already attracted a full entry of 56 different boy schools and 20 girls teams from a wide area.

English Martyrs (Tilehurst) will be making their first appearance, and that means 99 primary schools have attended one of the Crosfields festivals.

And the overall total is expected to top 100 at the cross-country festival on March 14.