TONGE captain Danny Delvard believes nine wins would give his side a fighting chance of promotion from the Association Division come September.

A happy skipper saw his Castle Hill men secure their third win from five matches, at home against Darcy Lever on Saturday by nine wickets with 29.5 overs remaining as they chased 107.

It leaves them six points behind second-placed Adlington, with Delvard admitting he would love to see Tonge back in the top flight for 2019.

“I’m not going to say ‘I don’t want to get promoted, we’re not ready’. I would love to send a message out to the wider cricket community regarding the hard work we’ve gone through,” he said.

“Secondly, I’d love to see Tonge back up there playing against the likes of Farnworth and Social Circle, Westhoughton, Kearsley. It would test us and see where how far we’ve come.

“If it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out.

“What I’ve tried to do with the team is build one that’s capable of holding it’s own with bat, ball and in the field.

“And what’s slowly coming to the fore is that consistency.

“We’ve got the ability, but we’ve gone from getting battered week in, week out to being competitive last year. Now, this year, we’re competitive and starting to see some consistency.

“When you put the two ingredients together, all of a sudden you become a dark horse or contender.

“That said, there’s so many teams who could win, lose, win, lose.

“We went through this process last year where we got to the last five games of the season and had an outside chance of promotion. Much relied on our performances rather than other teams and their results. But we couldn’t finish the job.”

Saturday’s win owed much to three-wicket hauls for new ball seamer Connor Lord and opening partner, Tilaksha Malshan, their Sri Lankan pro who bowls off-spin.

Malshan (42 not out) and opening batsman Freddie Oliver, who top-scored with 48, then shared an unbroken stand of 79 for the second wicket to seal the points.

“Darcy Lever had a few players missing, but that can happen,” said Delvard.

“What I said to the lads at half time was ‘win the game first, but see if you can do it without losing more than three wickets’.

“That’s the in-game management that’s improving.

“We’ve set a target of nine wins. Now we’re a third of the way there. I’m a believer that if we achieve that target, we’ll not be far off the top spots.

“Last year we got six in the league. If I remember rightly, both teams that got promotion went up with 10. So if you can get nine, you’ll be in the mix.

“That said, we have three very difficult games ahead in Little Lever, Astley Bridge and Adlington.”

Delvard added: “We’ve got a good atmosphere and group.

“We’ve just signed a new lad from Horwich, a youngster (14-year-old Seb Schofield) who we’ve put in the seconds to get some experience.

“The message to anybody is. ‘If people want opportunity and want to be part of something special, Tonge’s the place for me’.”