Guernsey v Bulgaria
ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Sub Regional Europe Qualifier Group C
T20I no. 2785
on Wednesday 21st August 2024 at 10.30am
at Guernsey Rovers Athletic Club Ground, Port Soif
Umpires: Russell Warren (Eng), Steve Wood (Ire), 3rd Richard Veillard (Gsy)
Referee: Gerrie Pienaar (S Afr)
Toss won by Bulgaria who elected to bat
Player Of The Match: Martin-Dale Bradley (G)
| Bulgaria innings | Runs | Balls | 4s | 6s | SR | Guernsey Bowling | Ov | Mdn | Runs | Wkt | ER | WD | NB | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zeerak Chughtai | run out (Damarell) | 12 | 20 | 1 | 0 | 60 | Dane Mullen | 3.5 | 1 | 11 | 2 | 2.86 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Dimo Nikolov | st Damarell | b Mullen | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Luke Bichard | 4 | 0 | 14 | 0 | 3.5 | 2 | 1 | |
| Firas Hussain | c Bichard | b Forshaw | 7 | 13 | 0 | 0 | 53.84 | Martin Bradley | 4 | 0 | 16 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 0 | |
| Milen Gogev | c Fitchet | b Bradley | 27 | 24 | 2 | 1 | 112.5 | Charlie Forshaw | 3 | 0 | 18 | 2 | 6 | 0 | 0 | |
| Isa Zaroo | c Bradley | b Martel | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 33.33 | Matthew Stokes | 2 | 0 | 12 | 0 | 6 | 0 | 0 | |
| Omar Rassol † | c Damarell | b Forshaw | 1 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 14.28 | Adam Martel | 3 | 0 | 19 | 1 | 6.33 | 0 | 0 | |
| Prakash Mishra * | st Damarell | b Mullen | 18 | 25 | 0 | 1 | 72 | |||||||||
| Danyal Raja | lbw | b Bradley | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 50 | |||||||||
| Ali Rasool | b Bradley | 3 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 37.5 | ||||||||||
| Gagandeep Singh | not out | 13 | 14 | 0 | 1 | 92.85 | ||||||||||
| Oscar Duff | run out (Mullen) | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 300 | ||||||||||
| Extras | (b 4, lb 3, nb 1, w 3) | 11 | ||||||||||||||
| TOTAL | (in 19.5 ov) | 97 | (RR: 4.89) | |||||||||||||
| Fall of wickets: 1-1 (Dimo Nikolov, 0.4 ov), 2-21 (Firas Hussain, 4.6 ov), 3-29 (Zeerak Chughtai, 6.3 ov), 4-33 (Isa Zaroo, 7.3 ov), 5-42 (Omar Rassol, 8.6 ov), 6-63 (Milen Gogev, 13.1 ov), 7-66 (Danyal Raja, 13.4 ov), 8-70 (Ali Rasool, 15.2 ov), 9-93 (Prakash Mishra, 19.3 ov), 10-97 (Oscar Duff, 19.5 ov) | ||||||||||||||||
| Guernsey innings | Runs | Balls | 4s | 6s | SR | Builgaria Bowling | Ov | Mdn | Run | Wkt | ER | WD | NB | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Josh Butler | not out | 41 | 28 | 4 | 1 | 146.42 | Danyal Raja | 2 | 0 | 14 | 0 | 7 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Ben Fitchet | c Ali Rasool | b Duff | 20 | 17 | 3 | 0 | 117.64 | Ali Rasool | 2 | 0 | 17 | 0 | 8.5 | 0 | 0 | |
| Tom Nightingale | c Danyal Raja | b Duff | 28 | 11 | 4 | 1 | 254.54 | Milen Gogev | 1 | 0 | 14 | 0 | 14 | 0 | 0 | |
| Matthew Stokes | not out | 4 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 200 | Gagandeep Singh | 2 | 0 | 18 | 0 | 9 | 1 | 0 | ||
| Oliver Nightingale * | dnb | Oscar Duff | 1.4 | 0 | 17 | 2 | 10.2 | 4 | 0 | |||||||
| Adam Martel | dnb | Prakash Mishra | 1 | 0 | 18 | 0 | 18 | 0 | 0 | |||||||
| Luke Bichard | dnb | |||||||||||||||
| Martin-Dale Bradley | dnb | |||||||||||||||
| Isaac Damarell † | dnb | |||||||||||||||
| Charlie Forshaw | dnb | |||||||||||||||
| Dane Mullen | dnb | |||||||||||||||
| Extras | (lb 1, w 5) | 6 | ||||||||||||||
| TOTAL | (for 2 wkts in 9.4 ov) | 99 | (RR: 10.24) | |||||||||||||
| Fall of wickets: 1-61 (Ben Fitchet, 6.4 ov), 2-95 (Tom Nightingale, 9.2 ov) | ||||||||||||||||
GUERNSEY issued a major statement of intent yesterday with a ruthless performance to win their opening match in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Sub Regional Europe Qualifier.
The Island side have adopted an aggressive brand of cricket over the last 18 months or so, designed purposefully with this home tournament in mind, and there was no deviating from the script at Port Soif as they swept past Bulgaria with a comprehensive eight-wicket win, sealed with more than half their overs remaining in the run chase. In an ideal world, the hosts would have batted first and perhaps given more of their batters the chance to get some time in the middle in what is a crucial event for the national team in greater scheme of things, but having lost the toss they still went about their job clinically and impressively.
Guernsey team meeting
The bowling was on the money, the fielding was efficient and the batting encouraging, considering they had a modest total to chase down in the west-coast sunshine. All in all it was a good morning’s work and yet, importantly, the air around the team at the conclusion of the game was realistic – this was just the first of, hopefully, five big steps towards next year’s Europe Final.
Dane Mullen set the tone from the off, striking in the first over as Zak Damarell smartly whipped off the bails with opener Dimo Nikolov having strayed out of his crease, to leave the visitors 1 for 1 off one. The Bulgarian batters looked to be positive in the powerplay, but they struggled to get the accurate Guernsey bowling away and before the fielding restrictions had been lifted they lost their second wicket when teenage seamer Charlie Forshaw had Firas Hussain caught at mid-on by Luke Bichard off a leading edge. Things quickly got worse for the visitors.
Martin-Dale Bradley went up for a big LBW shout against Milen Gogev and although the umpire turned down that appeal, he was soon raising his finger to dismiss non-striker Zeerak Chughtai who had come halfway down the wicket looking for a single before realising his partner was going nowhere and Damarell had removed his right-hand glove and thrown down the stumps with a direct hit. Bradley was in the action again in the following over, taking a fine low catch at point as Adam Martel removed Isa Zaroo, and moments later Forshaw had his second victim, with Omar Rasool gloving an attempted pull shot to Damarell down the legside. Gogev and his skipper Prakash Mishra stopped the rot for a while as they added 21 for the sixth wicket, but Guernsey were in total control and breaking that stand led to another cluster of wickets. It was Bradley who claimed the scalp of top-scorer Gogev, caught off a top edge by Fitchet at short fine leg for 27 from 24 balls, which included the first six of the game, and later in the over he accounted for Danyal All, who was hit plumb in front of the stumps on his toe by a quicker full delivery. The Irregulars all-rounder added a third wicket in his fourth over as he plucked left-hander All Rasool’s leg stump out of the ground and his excellent figures of 3 for 16 later earned him the player-of- the-match award.
Tom Nightingale goes big
Adam Martel misses caught and bowled
Mishra and Gagandeep Singh got their side as far as the 20th over, but they were. unable to take them into triple figures as the Mullen-Damarell combination did for the skipper before 15-year-old Oscar Duff was run out off the penultimate ball of the allocation. Although Guernsey had the full 20 overs available to them to knock off the 98 required, they were always looking to get them as quickly as possible with the importance of building a good net run-rate prevalent in their thinking. Josh Butler got the chase off to a brisk start with two boundaries in the opening over – the first a textbook drive through wide mid-off and the second a stand-and-deliver lofted shot over midwicket. Together with Ben Fitchet they took 55 off the six-over powerplay and when Fitchet fell in the next over, picking out Ali Rasool at deep square-leg with a flat pull shot, Tom Nightingale came in and upped the ante. Within 10 balls he had matched Butler’s tally of four fours and a six to take the Greens to the brink of victory, and it was only an attempt to finish things off in style that saw him depart before they passed the winning post as he holed out to Danyal Ali on the leg-side boundary to gift Duff a second wicket. Instead, Matt Stokes came in to show how it was done as he found the gap to Ali’s right-hand side to wrap up victory with 62 balls to spare.
Josh Butler aggressive batting
Guernsey face Malta at the KGV, on Thursday, 3.30pm start.
