SWINDON have given themselves a deadline of the first week in May to draft in a replacement for overseas player Ardil Domingo after the Australian was unable to return to the club for a second season.

Domingo’s wife is due to give birth over the English summer, ruling the all-rounder out of a County Ground comeback, and Swindon captain Liam Tucker is now on the look-out for a suitable alternative - either domestically or from abroad.

With the new term kicking off on May 3, Tucker wants his recruitment drive to be finalised before the first ball of the season.

He told the Advertiser: “We’ve got an in-house deadline of the first week of May because that’s when the season starts. I believe you can still register overseas players til the end of May but that’s not something we really want to do - scrapping around after the season has started.

“We haven’t made any massive signings as yet and we’re still working on a couple of things. It looks like it’s going to go right the way down to deadline.

“Ardil’s not coming back. We did speak to him about coming back this summer but his wife is giving birth over our summer so it was a bit impossible for him to come back.

“He was leading runscorer, leading wicket-taker, he was a good lad to have around the club and he got on with everyone as well, so it is a blow obviously. We are looking to replace him somehow - either an overseas player or an English player. We’re looking down both avenues.”

Tucker is not worried about leaving it late to bring in a new face, saying: “If you look around most clubs, overseas players generally don’t turn up until the week before the season starts anyway. There are very few who get over in February or March and have pre-season nets because they’re playing in their own countries.

“It’s not different to Ardil, who didn’t turn up until two weeks before the season.”

In the meantime, Swindon have added to their ranks with the signing of Harrison Painter from Marlborough and Adam Tucker from Shrivenham.

“They are two players we as a club know pretty well,” said the Swindon skipper “Harrison was with us as a lad and Adam plays midweek cricket with a lot of us as well. Both will be in and around the first-team squad and will be pushing for first-team places, which is good news for competition for places.”