A ‘special experience’ for skipper Shanks

June 11, 2026

IT WILL be a ‘special experience’ for Dan Shanks to skipper Suffolk for the first time when he returns to Hadleigh on Sunday.

The bowler will be back at his former club when Suffolk Men’s 1st XI face Lincolnshire in two matches in the NCCA Dojo T20 competition, start 11am.

Shanks, who joined Hadleigh in 2008 when he was just seven-years-old, will lead the side in the absence of Josh Cantrell and Jacob Marston, who are both unavailable.

Despite offers to move up to the East Anglian Premier League, Shanks stayed loyal to Hadleigh until this season when he moved across to Bury St Edmunds.

He said: “I had played for the first team for a long period of time and had hoped to gain promotion to the Premier League. In the final two years I even captained the first team, but unfortunately, we fell just short.

“I felt it was now time at 26 to give the Premier League a go to develop my own cricket further. It was a very difficult decision that took a lot of thought as it’s a club I really enjoyed my 18 years at.”

Hadleigh will be hosting the Suffolk Men’s 1st XI side for the first time – and Shanks is looking forward to returning to his old stomping ground.

“I can’t wait to be back at the club on Sunday. It will be good to see lots of familiar faces and hopefully it should be a great turn out and a really enjoyable day.

“It will be a really special experience to captain the side at my former club. I’ve got so much to be thankful to the club for and it played a huge role in helping me to make it into the Suffolk first team, so to not only play for Suffolk but to captain the team at the ground will be a fantastic experience and day.”

Shanks (pictured bowling above) was Suffolk’s best bowler across their opening two group games a fortnight ago against Cambridgeshire, which Suffolk won by 37 runs and 12 runs respectively.

However, the county have since been informed by the NCCA that they fielded an unregistered player and have been deducted four points, putting them bottom of the table.

“Obviously losing the four points is disappointing but it doesn’t take away the confidence and momentum we gained against Cambridgeshire.

“We need to just take the positives from the fact we played two very good games of T20 cricket and try to do that again on Sunday.

“No matter who we play we want to try to win both games and that will be no different this Sunday. If we manage to do that it will put us back in a decent position to qualify from the group, so that is what we will all try our best to achieve,” said Shanks.

Alex Oxley and Tom Harper come into the side in place of Cantrell and Marston, with Alex Maynard keeping wicket.

Suffolk: Alex Maynard (wkt), Feroze Khushi, Darren Ironside, Alex Oxley, Kieran Pell, Ollie Burle, Henry Bevan, Tom Harper, Archie Miller, Dan Shanks (capt), Freddie Cloud.

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