Biggins' mood swings with return to form

IT WAS a case of two wins out of four for Guernsey's four sides on the opening day of the inaugural KPMG Channel Islands Championship. At home, Clubhouse Optimists and C&W Rovers swept to convincing victories, but our travelling teams, Total Cobo and PKF Wanderers, lost in Jersey, the latter humiliatingly so.

Island captain Andy Biggins was a happy and satisfied man after seeing Optimists crush Old Victorians by eight wickets at the King George V Field.

But his demeanour post-match had changed somewhat from the midway point of the 45-over game when he bemoaned the fact that OVs, 52 for six at one stage, had been let off the hook by some sloppy fielding and set a target of 162.

Biggins was also a little drained by taking on the wicket-keeping responsibilities from Ian Damarell, the regular glove man, who was sidelined by a calf injury.

Three hours' later and having got back in the runs with an undefeated 31 in an unbroken 61-run stand with Ami Banerjee, Biggins was altogether chirpier.

'It was a good win and I'm quite chuffed the way we bowled and fielded,' said the left-hander.

'Also, when we don't have so many batsmen in the side, we concentrate more and tend to bat better. We applied ourselves quite well.'

Banerjee was again the cornerstone of the performance.

Long before he had eased to his undefeated 43, the Indian had wreaked havoc at the top of the OVs order.

Having won the toss and elected to bat the brown caps were soon 29 for four, with Banerjee having struck three times.

With Ward Jenner absent the visitors' middle order were not up to any revival, but with Mike de Haaff and Nick Chambers both putting down chances in the field, the visitors' tail wagged strongly.

It was a similar story at the College Field where the Guernsey champions, Rovers, also won by eight wickets.

Nick Derbyshire took two early wickets as St Ouen wobbled at 18 for three, but with Mark Tribe scoring an undefeated 46 from six in the order and far too many extras conceded, Rovers were presented with 149 to chase.

It proved to be a stroll.

Stand-in skipper Richard Headington - Tim Duke was away - cover-drove the first ball of the innings from Paul Horton for four, and by the time he went for 82 with the scores tied, the man hoping for an island comeback had cracked 13 boundaries.

Headington's unlikely partner in a first-wicket stand of 106 was Derbyshire.

The quick bowler is a contender for the number 11 spot in the full Guernsey team for next month's inter-insular, but he showed himself to be perfectly able with the bat and after a circumspect start launched three big sixes as he began to catch Headington on the board.

The partnership finally came to an end when Derbyshire went for another big hit and succeeded only in spiralling a skier towards slip where keeper Dave Clark took a well-judged catch. Derbyshire had made 45.

The big story in Jersey was one of Wanderers' rapid demise against Jersey champions Sporting Club.

Dave Piesing's men were going along nicely at 45 for one, but suddenly collapsed to be all out for 69.

Sporting Club raced to their target without losing a wicket in 16.2 overs.

Cobo fielded a particularly young and inexperienced side against Romerils at FB Field.

With no Jeremy Frith or Stuart Le Prevost in the team, as well as a number of other regular first-teamers, Cobo fielded four players 17 or under in Kris Moherndl, Luke and Jamie Nussbaumer and James Mullen.

Romerils cashed in on a second-string attack to post 242 and despite a half-century from opener Matt Oliver Cobo slipped to a 45-run defeat.

Cobo's only consolation was a decent amount of bonus points.