Namibia lined up for pre-ICC Trophy game

JOINING the ICC will give Guernsey cricket the pathway to great things, says a man in the know. J. B. Burger was not a household name before the 2003 World Cup (in truth, he isn't now), but he starred for minnows Namibia in the tournament in South Africa and England saw first-hand his capabilities when he smashed a run-a-ball 85 against them.

Next year though, rather than facing the likes of Andrew Caddick, Matthew Hoggard and Craig White, he could be up against Ami Banerjee, Pierre Moody and Nick Derbyshire as Guernsey look to arrange a fixture with Namibia as part of the Africans' preparations for the ICC Trophy in Ireland.

And the great thing is, he is looking forward to playing the Sarnians.

'Even now we have got to find warm-up games - you can never have enough of them and we are always having to look for them like most other sides,' said Burger, who was in Guernsey this week as coach of Eastbourne College, who drew with Elizabeth College on Tuesday.

'It would be great if we could play Guernsey sometime. Teams have helped us in the past by playing us and in the same way we would be helping Guernsey while they helped us get ready for the tournament.'

Guernsey has only just applied to join the ICC and even European regional tournaments are still a couple of years in the future, but Burger said that it was incredible how quickly teams progress up the ladder.

'It is an amazing timeline. If I look back, it is incredible. When I arrived in Namibia in 1998, there was nothing really in terms of major games. In '98 we had a couple of games against Denmark, which were very close contests, but that was about it.

'But if you keep plugging away, doing your best and believing, it just changes.

'As soon as you get a chance with the ICC, playing more, bigger games, it is natural you are going to get better,' he added.

Namibia's story itself should be a tool of encouragement for Guernsey.

Burger said there were 'four top clubs and about four or five others', which is not a huge resource of cricketers, and the national team was pretty poor in the 1997 ICC Trophy.

But by playing more competitive games together, including entering the second tier of the South African domestic competition, the Bowl, they managed to win the 11 games they needed in the 2001 ICC Trophy in Canada to qualify for the World Cup.

'When we first realised we had got a shot at the World Cup, it was human nature just to go for it.

'When you have got a direction, that is when you get the desire to make it where you want to go.'

Even then the country had a minimal number of players of sufficient standard from which to choose for South Africa 2003.

'We only had really 16 proper players and we took 15, so only one missed out. Since then it has been good and we have improved quite a lot. There are now 25-30 players capable of playing,' Burger said before describing the World Cup experience.

'It was really good. It is awesome playing against those sides and seeing how disciplined they are.

'Ability-wise, all the sides are not that much better than anyone else, but the best international sides' discipline is that much better. They just keep at you for longer.

'But when you get the chance to play against them, you realise you can compete. It is a big step up, but not an unclimbable one,' he added.

And that is what Burger wanted to emphasise to Guernsey cricketers.

If you want to make it, it does take hard work and time to do it, but it is not an impossible dream and at the end of it there are great benefits.

'I have been all over the world. I have been playing cricket for six years and I have been to about 10 countries just through playing cricket. To get to see so many countries in a short space of time through sport is a privilege.'

Burger's Eastbourne College had to settle for a draw when they met Elizabeth College.

The hosts were severely depleted through various school trips and their coach, Ami Banerjee, was forced into turning out for his side.

The Guernsey all-rounder made an important contribution as he claimed three wickets, as did captain James Warr, as Eastbourne reached 188 for seven in an 87-over contest, with the side batting first allowed a maximum of 45 overs.

The reply started poorly, with Elizabeth's top five all scoring five or fewer but Warr, Banerjee and Jamie Nussbaumer all hung around long enough to give their side the chance of salvaging something from the game.

Unsurprisingly, the Indian top scored with 51.

But it still required the last-wicket pairing of Matthew Copeland and Jonathan Wilkes-Green to play out the final six overs in a tense finale to snatch a draw against a side that had previously won all of their 10 games this season.