Max Waller, St Just Cricket Club's latest signing from Somerset County Cricket Club wants to win the league with his new team.

Waller, 33, is currently Somerset's second all time leading wicket taker in the clubs T20 history, five wickets behind South African pace bowler, Alfonso Thomas.

On why he is joining St Just the leg spinner said: "St Just got hold of me through Carl Gazzard.

"He basically said to me that there’s a club down in Cornwall interested in signing someone and would I be interested in having a chat with the club and then it was all sorted pretty sharpish.

"I was looking for another club. Bridgewater, who I was playing for, are playing a lot of youngsters this year so I wanted to give the opportunity to other people so I was looking around.

"Carl [Gazzard] knew someone from down in Cornwall and he played down there because he’s from Cornwall originally. The opportunity came up and I was keen to get down and play.

"It's supposed to be a lovely part of the world."

St Just play in the Cornwall Premier Division, and in their previous league campaign finished in fourth place behind Werrington, Redruth and winners Penzance.

This was played in 2019 following the cancellation of the 2020 season due to Covid.

Talking of his availability for the club based only a stones throw from Land's End, Waller said: "I’ll be available quite a lot in the early season and then I’ve got my Somerset commitments from June 21 so I think it will die down a bit then.

"There will maybe the odd weekend here and there when there's no cricket on a Sunday or Friday night or something so I could then play on the Saturday but we’ll take it how it comes really."

St Just were most recently crowned Premier Division Champions in 2016, winning 12 of the 18 games.

On the clubs aims for the upcoming season, Waller said: "I hope we’ll win the league. From all the accounts I’ve heard they’ve got a good side and been pushing for the title for the last few years and hopefully with a few additions and I’ve heard they’ve got a good overseas player coming in.

"So I imagine with a few of us coming in to strengthen the squad we’ll be in with a chance of winning the title."

For the club and village cricket purists this signing has been seen as a controversial one. With professionals coming to play in Cornwall's top league many are worried the next generation of players will not get a shot against other top players in the county or they will lose their own place to a pro.

Waller however does not see this as an issue saying: "I think having as high of a standard as possible [in the county] will firstly encourage kids to play cricket and hopefully as well the guys on the fringes wont think it’s stopped their opportunity, but it will help them get better with the professional cricketer being able to help them where they can.

"Also raising the standard of club cricket in general is important. Obviously the cricket pitches and the wickets have a massive say in the standard of cricket but generally the better players you have playing in the leagues, the better the standard is as you see in all leagues around the world.

"There’s a reason the top players go to play in these top leagues – the competition is such a high standard because the good players go there to play. The more top players going to play club cricket anywhere, especially in Cornwall, will help."

Throughout his career, Waller has taken 132 wickets in 133 T20 matches with an average of 23.80 and best innings figures of 4/16.

The leggie still has ambitious plans for his future and where his career will take him saying: "I’ve still got ambitions to play international cricket, especially in the T20 format.

"I know Adil Rashid is doing very well and he’s a very good bowler but that’s got to be my goal still."