HAVERHILL are on course to celebrate their 150th anniversary by retaining the club’s Division One status in the Marshall Hatchick Two Counties Championship.

The club, who won Division Two last season to clinch promotion to the top flight for the first time, are confident they will survive an immediate return to the second tier.

Adrian Dellar, Haverhill’s first-team manager, said: “Our aim at the start of the season was to maintain our Division One status.

“The boys are enjoying the challenge and looking to push on between now and the end of the season and finish in mid-table, which will probably be more than we expected at the start of the season.”

Chris Silverwood, the ex-England seamer who played for Yorkshire and Middlesex, is in his third season as the club’s coach and played half-a-dozen games at the start of the season before his coaching commitments at Essex kicked in.

Adam Dellar, Adrian’s son, recently stood down as skipper to concentrate on his batting and has been replaced by Luke Youngs for a Haverhill team who have been on the wrong end of several close finishes.

“It has been a case of so near and yet so far in several matches for us,” Added Dellar, “but in those games we have lost we have picked up between six and eight points, and we reckon that should be enough over the course of the season to ensure we stay up.”

Haverhill will be staging their annual Cricket Week this week when the Lashings World XI will once again be visiting Manor Road.

Among the former Test stars expected to play for Lashings are Ian Harvey (Australia), Norman Cowans, John Emburey and Phil DeFreitas (all England), Hamish Marshall (New Zealand), Richie Richardson (West Indies) and Henry Olonga (Zimbabwe).

This will be the fifth year running that Lashings have visited the Suffolk side, who will be seeking revenge for a 207-run thrashing last year when Australian one-day specialist Harvey scored a superb 174.

Haverhill will include Silverwood and Billy Godleman, the Essex batsman who plays for Wivenhoe, in their side for the showcase fixture on Thursday, start 2pm, when admission will be �10 for adults and �5 for concessions. Haverhill are also hopeful that Henry Blofeld will attend and commentate on the match like he did last year.

The Cricket Week will start on Monday with a county under-13 districts tournament, starting at 11am, and continue on Tuesday with the first-ever meeting between the Two Counties Championship and the Cambridgeshire & Huntingdonshire TuckerGardner Premier League, start 2pm.

The Two Counties XI will be skippered by Silverwood and is expected to include Godleman and Essex team mate Tymal Mills (Mildenhall), Dellar and Youngs (both Haverhill), Will and Ollie Blackwell (both Coggeshall), Matt and Tim Catley (both Exning), Trevor Moulton and Mark Jones (both Frinton).

After the visit of Lashings on the Thursday, a Haverhill Under-23 XI will take on the President’s XI, start 2pm, when up to 80 past players are also expected to attend.