Penzance cricket club's head coach and director of cricket, Greg Smith, is full of confidence heading into the upcoming season.

Smith is also looking forward to working with both new and familiar faces too.

Over the close season, Penzance CC have bolstered their squad with the arrival of Ant Angove and Dan Lello.

The team will also be hoping to bring in South African, Beyers Swanepoel, as their overseas player - Covid dependant.

Angove, a right arm fast bowling all-rounder, returns to St Clare following a short stint with Falmouth last season.

Prior to that, Angove spent a very successful four seasons with Penzance, playing 109 games, scoring 2551 runs and taking 96 wickets for the club along the way.

Smith, a British-South African former cricketer said: "Ant Angove has come back to us after just a year away, he went back to Falmouth which didn’t quite work out.

"I think he wanted to get Falmouth promoted but that didn’t quite happen with Covid and now they're stuck in the same division, so I think he always wanted to come back to us, he has now come back which is great."

On the signing of Dan Lello, a 24 year old right arm medium pace all-rounder, Smith said: "We’ve also got Dan Lello who’s from Hayle but played for St Just.

"I think he’s going to be quite an exciting young prospect, he’s got a lot of talent but he needs to have the mental side sharpened up around the edges and hopefully we can do that for him so everyone can see what he’s about."

Lello leaves St Just following a three season stint in which he picked up best bowling figures of 5/13 and a high of 117 not out with the bat.

The final signing of Swanepoel is yet to be 100 percent decided due to the Coronavirus pandemic.

The 22-year-old was due to join up with Penzance for the 2020 season, this however was not possible due to Covid restrictions.

The right-arm seamer and left hand batsman is seen as one of South Africa’s brightest prospects and has played a number of first-class games for Free State in his home country.

On the potential signing, Smith said: "He looks like a real talent so hopefully he can light up a few games for us this year."

Following the governments roadmap, we should see a return to normality for this years cricket season with grassroots sport allowed to return on March 29.

On the upcoming summer, Smith said: "We’ve just been given the greenlight that there might be some cricket come April, so our groundsman has come off furlough and has started to prepare the grass and the wickets.

"Hopefully it will be a full season and we want to continue the progression of the last few years and try to challenge for the trophies again – trying to win all the competitions which would be great.

"We want to get some of our players to start dominating with both bat and ball and hopefully also get a lot of them into the county set up and start performing for the county as well which would also be great."

Smith has also started up the Penwith Elite Cricket Academy with the aim to nurture and develop the South West's top cricketing talents.

The program began last summer for children aged 10-15 and Smith is keen to continue this coaching this year saying: "[The Penwith Elite Cricket Academy] will start as soon as cricket is good to go and depending on numbers of how many we’re allowed to train so we’ve got to keep that in mind. But if anyone would like to get involved in that they can get in touch with me."