WILTSHIRE head coach Tom Morton believes his side can be quietly confident ahead of their Unicorns Knockout Trophy first round tie against Devon at Warminster on Sunday, writes JONATHAN LEIGHFIELD.

Wiltshire have started their season in encouraging form – winning four of their eight games so far this summer, losing three and drawing the other – including claiming a victory and a draw against Devon in a Twenty20 double-header at the start of the month.

Devon, on the other hand, have made a poor start to their 2019 season and have not won any of their six T20 group games so far.

Wiltshire’s upcoming opponents are much-changed from the two sides’ early-season encounter and will boast several players that are either attached or contracted to County Championship side Somerset.

The explosive Peter Trego is the standout name in the Devon line-up, while the visitors will also field Ben Green, Tom Lammonby and Kasey Aldridge. All three are past or present England U19 players.

Despite the star names in the opposition side, Morton has full confidence in his own players to execute their skills efficiently and emerge victorious.

He said: “We haven’t had a game over the past few Sundays, but we’re feeling confident going into the game.

“We’ve played Devon twice recently – we beat them once and tied the other one.

“They were two really good games, so I’m expecting another tight match this time around.

“Devon are a lot stronger this time than what they were before. Peter Trego, the Somerset player, is in their squad as well as a few other good players, so we are expecting it to be quite a big challenge.

“But we’ve been playing well this year, so we’re feeling confident.

“Collectively, there’s more confidence flying around than there was this time last year, but also, some of the lads are doing well on Saturdays in club cricket, so they can take individual confidence from those performances as well.

“We haven’t won anything yet, so we don’t want to get too carried away, but the lads are in form, so we can be fairly confident we’ll put up a good fight in the game.”

Should Wiltshire make it through on Sunday, they will face Wales or Oxfordshire in the Knockout Trophy quarter-finals.

But Morton will not turn his attention to any other game before Sunday and has targeted a successful run in the 50-over competition as the coach tries to breed a winning habit among his players.

He said: “We want to make sure we’re in the competition for as long as possible.

“Personally, I want to go out and win every game I play in, whether it’s a T20 game, in the three-day format or in the 50-over competition.

“This time last year, we were really struggling in the Twenty20 competition, and we got through in the first round of the 50-over cup, but we lost to Devon away.

“So it’s kind of a repeat, only now we’ve had more success in the T20 competition.

“We’d like to think we’ve got a better chance of being successful in this cup this year, but Devon have got a strong side out this week, so we’ll have to wait and see.”