Crocker denies GICC

THE annual two-day fixture between the GICC and the JICC ended in a draw yesterday with the home side unable to take the final two wickets required for victory at the College Field. After establishing a 35-run lead from the first innings, the GICC added a further 243 in their second innings with all the batsmen chipping in before captain Stuart Le Prevost declared.

He and Dave Piesing ended as joint top scorers with 44 apiece.

Man-of-the-match Ian Crocker made his second half-century opening the visitors' reply, but the JICC finished 72 runs short of their 279 target.

Glenn Milnes' re-appearance in the DHS St Pierre side coincided with a return to winning ways for the double Barclays Premier One champions.

In truth, the New Zealander, who has been plagued by back problems and missed most of the campaign, was hardly influential in a 21-run win over a tepid DB Taverners side which never looked like challenging their opponents' handy 19-over total of 131.

Doug Mackay (34) and Paul Wakeford (31) scored freely for St Pierre, but nobody in green remotely looked like producing a match-winning performance with the bat.

Dave Hearse and Andy Burkhardt kept openers Robbie Moore and Justin Scriven subdued and by the time Moore slashed a long-hop into deep square-cover's hands, seven overs had been required to score 28.

Other than Scriven, who was leg-before on the back-foot to spinner Chris Cox for 21, no Taverner looked to have the capability of raising the tempo and long before the end of one of the most insipid top-flight games of the season, the black-and-greys had the game won.

In Scotland, a Guernsey Development XI opened their four-match tour with a 40-run defeat at the hands of a West of Scotland under-17 side. Under James Warr's astute captaincy, the visitors did well to dismiss the Scots for 152, but Guernsey found batting no easier and other than Warr (26), no player looked like getting on top of the bowling.