'Awesome' juniors show transformation

TEAM manager Jon Ravenscroft has described his under-13 side's victory over Dorset as 'awesome'. The massive potential of the island's young cricketers was emphasised as a full-strength Dorset under-12s suffered successive and comprehensive defeats during their tour.

The visitors were outplayed by their Sarnian counterparts on Saturday as they slumped to a nine-wicket defeat at the Memorial Field.

That was followed by an impressive six-wicket win for Guernsey under-13s at the College Field the next day when more than half of that older age group side were under-12s.

'Guernsey cricket has shown that we can compete with the best of the UK county cricket sides. The boys were awesome,' said Ravenscroft.

Guernsey under-12s were on the boil right from the start, with Andrew Hutchinson and Adam Hindle conceding only 10 runs from the opening 10 overs of the Dorset innings.

Max Ellis' fine spell of left-arm spin that yielded three for 31 helped restrict the visitors to 153 for seven from their 40 overs.

Hindle followed up his exploits with the ball with his first county half-century, finishing unbeaten on 60 from 121 balls, as he and Chris Peatfield led their side to victory.

The latter, playing up an age group, clocked up his second county fifty with 53 not out from 70 deliveries.

The following day, Hindle and Ellis again shone with the ball taking two wickets apiece, while William Peatfield impr-essed with his outswingers as he conceded a miserly six runs from the same number of overs.

Guernsey also produced a more disciplined fielding display on this occasion and Dorset could manage only 125 for seven from 47 overs.

The home side cruised to their target in less than 25 overs with Tim Ravenscroft (46 not out) and Jon Clark (40) both in superb touch with the bat.

The Guernsey performances astonished Dorset coach Graham Symmonds who has been involved with cricket for many years and has overseen very comfortable wins over the CI in the past.

'Graham Symmonds was amazed by the transformation of our teams in just a couple of years,' said coach Jason Shambrook.

'He asked me before the game on Sunday if we had anything left to come in to bat after Adam Hindle and Chris Peatfield had knocked off the runs on Saturday.

'I think he realised the quality in depth when both players didn't bat on Sunday and Jon Clark and Tim Ravenscroft had smashed the ball to all parts of the ground.'

Two other Guernsey age group sides were in action at the weekend.

The under-11s performed well but let a winning position slip against Ipswich Prep School, who won by four wickets chasing 119.

Tom Richards was the main contributor with the bat for Guernsey while Tom Still and Matthew Renouf bowled well.

'At one stage Ipswich were six for six, but we relaxed a little and their middle order built up a very useful partnership which we found hard to contain,' said manager Ian Damarell.

Meanwhile, although Guernsey under-16s suffered two defeats away to Eastbourne College and Dorset under-15s, the tour was very useful, said manager Dave Nussbaumer.

The highlights of the batting were Peter Le Hegerat and David Banks both scoring 39 against Eastbourne and Chris Whitworth's 43 runs over the weekend. The pick of the bowlers was Tom Strawbridge who picked up three wickets against Dorset.

'It was a great learning curve for both the players and myself, giving me the opportunity to discover those boys that are making the necessary progress and are up for the challenges that lie ahead,' said Nussbaumer.