IT WILL feel like the start of the season again tomorrow, with several new faces on view around the DBS NYSD League circuit.

An unlikely combination of injuries, international call-ups, visa delays and volcanic ash contrived to keep a significant number of overseas players on their own shores for the first couple of weeks. But with the first bank holiday weekend beckoning, many are going to be pitched straight into a frenetic double header.

Great Ayton and Guisborough clash at Leven Park in a derby that never lacks spice, but the home team have been caught in a double-edged professionals trap. With South African Andrew Birch not due to arrive until early May because of international duty, Ayton signed Durham’s Mitch Claydon as a substitute, only to find him playing for the county and then injured.

But they may have one significant newcomer in the shape of Steve Chapman. The NYSD legend was considering playing for home town Crook, but has opted to join his colleagues at Ayton who winter with him in Australia.

It’s been a hectic couple of weeks for the Priorymen. The signing of Saj Weerakoon was hailed as a masterstroke, but the Sri Lankan with an outstanding first-class record dislocated his shoulder and was also likely to be playing for his country by early July, and so the club have bitten the bullet and lapsed his registration.

They then had a sensational signing lined up as his replacement, but that fell through at the last minute, and they have now turned to another Sri Lankan, Lassana Dias, a slow left-armer with 218 first-class wickets in the locker at 20 apiece. But he won’t arrive until next week at the earliest.

Stokesley have been delighted with their start to life under the Premier spotlight, and they are able to include Chamila Gamage for the first time when they travel to Kingsway in the first of a testing double – Middlesbrough being the visitors to the SCG on Monday.

Bishops had a great win last weekend inspired by the returning Dan Conway, who earlier in April had made his first-class debut for Oxford MCCU.

Elsewhere, Northallerton expect Teddy Parida to be in their starting line-up at Park Drive, Steve Lister comes straight in to the Quakers team for the trip to Billingham, Sri Lankan opening bat Ian Daniel will debut for Thornaby, Upul Indrasiri plays for champions Marton, and Yasir Shah plays his first match for Boro – 12 months after his originally scheduled debut.

Last weekend witnessed some tremendous games and what was best came in bucketfuls at Darlington, Northallerton and Marske, while just short of 900 runs were scored in two other matches with a century and a narrowly-missed 100 among them.

Middlesbrough took an early ride to the top of the league with a breathtaking win at Feethams.

They needed 78 to win in the last ten overs and got them with Omar Shahid (90 no) hitting a last ball six. He shared a seventh wicket unbroken stand of 82 with young Ryan Buckley (23).

Darlington’s Lee Hutton missed out on a century by three runs in setting a potentially match winning score of 243-1.

At Northallerton, Craig Symington (62no) won the game for Billingham with a blistering final over, hitting 14 which included boundaries from the last two balls, while at Marske, Dan Conway won the match for Bishop Auckland with a hat-trick.

Richmond’s Shani Dissanayake flew in and got within six runs of a century at Guisborough where 474 runs – and the points – were shared, while champions Marton got their first win after Matty Brown, hit an unbeaten century from 111 balls with 13 fours and a six.

Normanby Hall enjoyed the luxury of sharing the league leadership with a second successive win and the two Andrews, Weighell (66) and Helm (5-33) earned Stokesley the lion’s share of the points in a draw with Thornaby.