Inter Insular #69 2023

Guernsey v Jersey

played at KGV, Guernsey

on Sat 2nd September 2023 at 10.15am

Umpires: M Kinder (G) H Kearns (J) 3rd C Brooks (G)

Scorers: B O’Brien (G) L Hopfinger (J)

Toss won by Guernsey who elected to field

Jersey won by 173 runs

Jersey innings			Runs	Balls	Mins	4s	6s	S/r		Guernsey Bowling	Ov	Mdn	Runs	Wkt	Wd	Nb	S/r	Econ
P Gouge		b M Stokes	18	25	27	3	0	72		W Peatfield	10	0	66	0	1(1)	0(0)	0	6.6
J Dunford +		b M Stokes	2	8	11	0	0	25		M Stokes	10	2	39	2	0(0)	0(0)	30	3.9
B Stevens		b D Mullen	34	54	81	3	0	62.96		L Bichard	10	0	60	0	0(0)	0(0)	0	6
A Tribe		b D Mullen	35	43	50	3	1	81.4		A Martel	9	0	75	0	1(2)	0(0)	0	8.33
J Jenner	not out		116	94	108	9	4	123.4		D Mullen	10	0	55	2	3(8)	0(0)	31.5	5.5
Z Tribe	not out		96	76	92	8	2	126.32		T Nightingale	1	0	17	0	0(0)	0(0)	0	17
C Brennan	dnb
J Sumerauer	dnb
T Britton	dnb
C Perchard *	dnb
RJG Palmer	dnb
Extras	(0nb 11w 4lb 0b)		15
Total	(for 4 wkts in 50 overs)		316
Fall of Wickets:	1-10 (Dunford 3.2 ov), 2-33 (Gouge 7.3 ov), 3-91 (A Tribe 20.2 ov), 4-108 (Stevens 24.1 ov)

Guernsey innings			Runs	Balls	Mins	4s	6s	S/r		Jersey Bowling	Ov	Mdn	Runs	Wkt	Wd	Nb	S/r	Econ
LJ Barker	c R Palmer	b J Sumerauer	0	3	2	0	0	0		J Sumerauer	6	1	26	2	1(5)	0(0)	18.5	4.33
B Fitchet	c J Jenner	b RJG Palmer	18	23	29	4	0	78.26		T Britton	8	2	30	1	2(2)	0(0)	50	3.75
JP Butler		b T Britton	8	23	23	1	0	34.78		RJG Palmer	4	1	23	1	0(0)	0(0)	24	5.75
M Stokes *	c R Palmer	b J Sumerauer	31	29	32	5	1	106.9		C Perchard	5	0	20	2	2(3)	0(0)	16	4
I Damarell +	lbw	b B Stevens	30	42	60	3	0	71.43		A Tribe	2	0	14	1	0(0)	0(0)	12	7
T Nightingale	c Z Tribe	b A Tribe	4	10	13	0	0	40		B Stevens	4.5	0	19	3	0(0)	0(0)	9.67	3.93
O Nightingale	c Dunford	b C Perchard	12	16	21	0	0	75
A Martel		b B Stevens	10	10	16	2	0	100
W Peatfield	c &	b C Perchard	0	2	1	0	0	0
D Mullen	not out		9	17	16	1	0	52.94
L Bichard		b B Stevens	0	4	5	0	0	0
Extras	(0nb 10w 8lb 3b)		21
Total	(in 29.5 ov)		143
Fall of Wicket: 1-0 (LJ Barker 0.3 ov), 2-35 (JP Butler 7.4 ov), 3-35 (B Fitchet 8.3 ov), 4-85 (M Stokes 16.6 ov), 5-96 (T Nightingale 19.4 ov), 6-119 (I Damarell 23.5 ov), 7-122 (O Nightingale 24.3 ov), 8-122 (W Peatfield 24.5), 9-137 (A Martel 27.6 ov), 10-143 (L Bichard 29.5 ov)

Preview

Griffins pair set for first caps as inter-insular returns to KGV By Gareth Le Prevost        Guernsey Press

Two new Channel Islands club champions are in line to make their full inter-insular debuts tomorrow. Griffins pair Ben Fitchet and Dane Mullen are the uncapped players in the 12-man Guernsey squad named for the 50-over contest against Jersey, which will be the first played at the KGV since 2019.

‘You are picking for a one-off game so you are weighing up a lot of things from local cricket to performances people have put in when in a Guernsey shirt,’ said Guernsey director Jeremy Frith. ‘Fitchy has been playing Premier League cricket in London, which is a fantastic level, and performing well, as well as doing well in the Island games he has come in for this season. ‘He is a key part in the way we want to play our cricket. ‘Dane has always done well in local cricket, the key bit is does what people do in local cricket translate onto a higher level and Dane bowled well in the Hampshire Academy games, he did well against the MCC and he then did really well against the Dutch A side, who had guys who are looking to go to the World Cup. ‘He rocked up and bowled his 10 overs, taking 1 for 40 in both those games and you cannot ask for much more. ‘All the questions he has been asked, he has come up with the answer and he thoroughly deserves it.’

Interim Island captain Matt Stokes will lead the side for the first time against Jersey in this format and Frith reiterated his skipper’s statement after the recent T20I success against Germany of wanting the players to back their ability. ‘What we are trying to do is look at the way we play our cricket and stick to the process around that,’ Frith said. ‘As Stokesy talked about, it is about people trusting the process and engaging in the way we want to play. ‘The inter-insular gives you that cup final atmosphere, which is another test of how you can apply your skills under pressure. It is a great day, but for us it is about playing the game and not the occasion. ‘It takes a lot to better Jersey at the moment, but as a simple measure of how we are going, we need to shift that balance of wins and losses against Jersey. But whatever they bring on the day, we have to bring our best and hopefully that will be good enough.’

Guernsey squad:

Matt Stokes (captain), Lucas Barker, Luke Bichard, Josh Butler, Zak Damarell, Ben Ferbrache, Ben Fitchet, Adam Martel, Dane Mullen, Ollie Nightingale, Tom Nightingale, Will Peatfield.

Jersey squad:

Chuggy Perchard (Captain), Charlie Brennan, Toby Britton, Jake Dunford, Patrick Gouge, Jonty Jenner, Stan Norman, Rhys Palmer, George Richardson, James Smith, Ben Stevens, Julius Sumerauer, Asa Tribe, Zak Tribe.

Match report:

Jenner and Tribe rewrite the Jersey record books

By Gareth Le Prevost        Guernsey Press      4^th Sept 2023

TWENTY-FIVE years ago, his dad Ward was captaining Guernsey in the inter-insular. On Saturday, Jonty Jenner was putting the island of his birth to the sword with a brilliant hundred at the KGV to set up Jersey’s fifth straight win in the 50-over contest. Together with Zak Tribe, Jenner’s partner-in-crime, so to speak from a Sarnian perspective, they took what had been a well-balanced contest away from the hosts with an outstanding display of ability, positivity, maturity and often ingenuity that even brought begrudging admiration from the home supporters.

The fifth-wicket pair’s unbroken stand of 208 was almost simple in its execution, such was the ease in which they played some truly remarkable strokes, and in its way cruel on a bowling attack who did not do an awful lot wrong but could come up with no answers. After winning the toss and choosing to bowl first on a pitch that had taken on some moisture in Thursday’s rain, Guernsey got off to a good start with the ball and gave as good as they got for the first half of the Jersey innings. Young debutant opener Patrick Gouge showed himself to be a decent prospect, looking compact and getting off the mark with an eye-catching cover drive for four in Will Peatfield’s opening over, and he later repeated the dose on his way to 18, but the Greens did not have too late to wait to make the breakthrough as Jake Dunford played a full ball from Matt Stokes onto his stumps. The Guernsey skipper picked up the wicket of Gouge, too, with a good one that nipped back to clip the top of middle stump. That saw left-hander Ben Stevens, briefly out of retirement, joined by the recent Glamorgan Seconds centurion Asa Tribe and while the former looked rusty early on, they started to build a platform for the Reds, with Tribe taking the lead role. Their partnership of 58 took the visitors up towards triple figures, with Tribe’s six over wide long-off off Adam Martel’s spin being a highlight. Things looked ominous for Dane Mullen and his side when he was welcomed into the attack by another top shot from Tribe, who punched a four through the covers with immaculate timing, but Mullen’s response was swift and clinical with his next delivery being a pearler that bowled the right-hander through the gate. Four overs later Mullen struck again as Stevens, who seemed in two minds at whether to play at a good length ball outside his off stump, chopped on.

At 108 for 4 in the 25th over, the game was evenly poised and the Greens felt they were just a couple of wickets away from causing a big upset. Jenner and the younger Tribe had other ideas, though, and what was to come in the second half of the Jersey innings was something very special – so much so that by the end they even had some of the most ardent Guernsey supporters giving them a standing ovation in admiration. Mullen very nearly turned a fine debut into an excellent one when Jenner gave a tough half-chance to Ben Fitchet out at long-off and it would have been one of the great inter-insular catches had the other debutant managed to cling on as he dived forward to his left, but it did not stick and soon the batters took full control. Jenner’s first six was something to behold as he mimicked MS Dhoni’s famous helicopter shot to launch Adam Martel over extra-cover, while Tribe joined in when Tom Nightingale briefly entered the attack, smacking him for back-to-back maximums over the leg-side boundary.

The runs were flowing and it was a race between the two to get to a half-century first. Both were within one shot of that milestone when Jenner reached his off the 62nd delivery he faced with a flashing drive through the covers. He then upped the ante and had reached 78 before Tribe brought up his run-a-ball 50 in the 43rd over. By now Jenner, who as well as being capable of plundering boundaries is a whippet between the wickets, had brought out the reverse sweeps and the fielders could only watch as they disappeared into the crowd. One more half-chance came when, just for once, Jenner mistimed an attempted pull and skied the ball, but bowler Luke Bichard had to turn, chase and try to take it coming over his shoulder and it went to ground. That was particularly unfortunate for Bichard, whose figures were not a fair reflection on how well he bowled.

Jenner took the next two deliveries he faced from Peatfield for 10 runs to move onto 99 and two balls later he squeezed a yorker-length ball out for a single to complete a magnificent century. Bichard’s luck was soon summed up when Tribe was struck on the pad attempting a sweep and the ball went onto the stumps but did not dislodge a bail. That gave the teenage batter a slim chance to reach three figures, too, and he came agonisingly close. Following successive boundaries, he was left requiring a six off the last ball of the innings but his big heave was inside-edged to square leg to leave him 96 not out off 76 balls. He had hit eight fours and two sixes. Jenner finished unbeaten on 116 from 94 balls with nine fours and four sixes.

Leaving the field knowing they had a mammoth target of 317, Guernsey looked deflated. The mood worsened when they lost Lucas Barker in the first over of the chase when he mistimed a pull shot to give Rhys Palmer a simple catch at mid-on.

There were a few promising spells from the hosts with the bat, firstly when Fitchet and Josh Butler added 35 for the second wicket, but when they both fell on the same score, hope had more or less gone. Butler was bowled by 16-year-old debutant left-arm spinner Toby Britton while Fitchet was sensationally caught by that man Jenner, who leapt and grabbed the ball one-handed high above his head at backward point to gasps from the crowd. Skipper Stokes showed exactly why he is Guernsey’s best player in a 50-run partnership with Zak Damarell as he eased to 31 at quicker than a run-a-ball with some typically classy strokes. It was almost the biggest surprise of the day when he fell, Palmer taking a sharp catch low down from a well-struck pull shot.

After that, the wickets tumbled quickly. Tom Nightingale unerringly picked out Zak Tribe at deep square-leg off the bowling of Asa Tribe, before Damarell, who had been clocked by a rapid Julius Sumerauer bumper, was leg before to Stevens when he missed an attempted sweep. Jersey captain Chuggy Perchard joined in on the act with two in three balls as both Ollie Nightingale and Peatfield succumbed to two more top-drawer catches – one from Dunford behind the stumps and the other from the bowler as he dived full-length to his right in his follow through. Stevens then finished things off by bowling both Martel and Bichard.

Match review:

‘So many positives to take from season as a whole’

By Gareth Le Prevost                  Guernsey Press      5^th September 2023

THE sobering size of the inter-insular defeat should not define a season in which Guernsey have made progressive strides says interim captain Matt Stokes.

‘We will look back on all of the positives, in particular beating the Hampshire Academy, beating the MCC scoring 350, beating Germany both chasing and defending – there are so many positives to take away from it and that’s what we will be focused on,’ he said. Stokes called Saturday’s unbroken partnership of 208 between Jersey’s centurion Jonty Jenner and Zak Tribe, who made 96, ‘quite brilliant’ on a day when the Caesareans set a host of records. That was the highest stand in an inter-insular and helped set a new highest total of 316, while the 173-run victory was the bjggest victory margin for a team batting first. Jenner’s 116 not out was also the highest individual score for Jersey in the traditionally annual contest with R O’Callaghan’s 105 from 1959 their only other century. Yet Stokes added that at half-way, he was still optimistic about his side’s chances. ‘We took a step back and thought this wicket is actually a really good wicket and we thought we can score 320 runs. Batting out there, we thought there are runs and every batter who went in and came out thought it was one we should really have got a lot closer,’ said the skipper who ended as his side’s top-scorer with 31 of their 143.

‘I was pleased with how we went about our batting. We weren’t afraid to play our shots and I was happy we were going at five, five-and-a-half an over throughout, the only bit is we lost wickets at regular intervals and that kills you in a game. ‘If you take our end score of 140 off 25-30 overs but make it for two, we are really in the game. ‘It’s a learning curve and it’s a building block. We are not that far away. Play more games like that and it will definitely put us on the right path.’ Stokes’ opposite number Chuggy Perchard admitted that Guernsey were well in the contest for the first 25 overs as they removed Jersey’s top four with 108 on the board, but added that they were expecting such a battle.

‘We were certainly under pressure for the first 20 overs, but obviously that was a special partnership we were able to witness,’ he said. ‘It was tough early doors and we spoke about that as a team, getting through that tough period. We’ve played here before, we know the wicket well, we knew that it would flatten out so wickets in the shed were quite an important thing for us but it turned out we didn’t even need those wickets because of that unbelievable partnership – it was special batting that. ‘I don’t really have too many more superlatives to use about that partnership – it was one of the best I’ve seen. We witnessed one earlier in the year between Josh Lawrenson and Asa, who put on 200 against PNG. Those two obviously put on over 200 today, that’s the standard that we are setting now and it’s great to see. ‘We’ve got a super, young batting line-up and hopefully there will be many more big partnerships to come. We talk about it because that’s obviously what wins matches and it’s great to see it get put into practice now.’

With an ominous nod to the future from a Guernsey perspective, Perchard added that the Jersey production line shows few signs of slowing down and that they have ‘plenty of good young cricketers knocking on the door’. ‘We had three youngsters on the bench today all very capable of coming in and doing a good job and there’s other lads back home as well more than capable of playing at this level,’ he said. ‘I’m sure their time will come, but it’s a very difficult side to break into at the moment, which I suppose is a good thing.’ While the heady heights Jersey have reached on the international stage have both helped with that production line and also given Perchard many fond memories in recent years, he emphasised that the inter-insular is still a big occasion for him. ‘It still is, in a way, the highlight of my cricketing calendar. I love the inter-insular, the rivalry, and getting the upper hand on Guernsey is sweet.’