Our glorious summer

WHAT a summer it has been for Guernsey cricket and next year holds so much more in store. In June, Guernsey's affiliate membership of the International Cricket Council should be confirmed and that will be the beginning of a whole host of exciting new opportunities.

In fact, with several countries looking for warm-up games ahead of the ICC Trophy competition being held in Ireland next season, our senior representative side look set to benefit immediately. Matches against the likes of Canada and Namibia, who both reached the 2003 World Cup in South Africa, are a distinct possibility next June.

'The ICC Trophy starts on 1 July in Ireland and these sides will be arriving in the UK about 10 days or so beforehand,' said Guernsey Cricket Board president Dave Piesing.

'They are looking for practice games so it would be a perfect opportunity for us to test ourselves out and it would give us a good benchmark for what we are aiming at.

'They will be exciting times if we can pull it off,' he added.

But that is all to come. Let's just take a moment to reflect on what has just gone in a season in which, try as it might, the rain could not spoil some wonderful entertainment.

The sun certainly shone for Guernsey on a glorious day at Grainville where Andy Biggins led his side to a record-equalling third successive victory.

The bowlers were outstanding on the day and although there were a few jitters early on in the reply, Jeremy Frith helped settle them down and Stuart Le Prevost's unbeaten 53 guided us home in compelling style.

The only person who perhaps wasn't so impressed was our father who, after being informed of how many balls his elder son faced (39), responded with surprise, saying 'that many?'

Dave Hearse's excellent squad went on to sweep aside all before them in the Four-Islands Tournament and it was great to see Tim Duke score 98 not out in the final as he at last transferred his club form onto the representative stage.

And Guernsey's dominance spread into club cricket with two of our sides reaching the final of the KPMG CI Club Championship.

It was a crying shame that such a showpiece occasion was deprived of arguably the best player in the Channel Islands (Ami Banerjee) and the Guernsey captain (Biggins), but, as good as our administrators are, they cannot control the weather.

When the match was eventually played, unfortunately it was not much of a contest.

However, Cobo were undoubtedly deserving winners of the inaugural competition having been the form side in the Channel Islands throughout the two months of its duration.

And, in among those CI fixtures, they had beaten an Optimists side, which included Banerjee and Biggins, in the semi-final of the Cable & Wireless GCA Cup when they did a fine job of chasing an imposing 252.

Of course, they went on to win that competition also with another comfortable victory in the final, this time against Wanderers.

But as Cobo dominated the second half of the season, so Rovers had done the first, winning a domestic league double.

After coming through a horrid 2003 season, the Port Soif club were back where they belong, competing for the top honours and claiming silverware both in weekend and evening cricket.

In the shorter form of the game they were particularly impressive, winning 13 successive matches after losing their opening fixture, and captain Duke led from the front.

His Premier One aggregate of 630 runs was quite an achievement in itself but to score 484 of them in a run of seven undefeated half-centuries over the second half of his league programme was astonishing.

Their Carey Olsen Championship success was a closer-run thing which went down to the final match between Cobo and Optimists, but having won more games than anyone else in a very competitive league, Rovers were worthy champions.

Elsewhere, congratulations also go to Deloitte, who performed admirably on their first season back in the top flight, and HSBC Griffins who have earned their place there for next season.

Individual player highlights were many, too many to mention really, but two in particular stood out because of their rarity.

It was almost a decade ago that Dougie Mackay had hit the most recent century in the top flight of the evening league until Frith and Divan van den Heever both achieved the feat in fine style this summer.

They were contrasting innings - the former's a lesson in placement and running while van den Heever's was founded on awesome ball-striking - but both a joy to behold and they will linger long in the memory.

But perhaps most satisfying of all things I witnessed this summer was the continuing progress being made in youth development.

Tim Ravenscroft has deservedly grabbed his fair share of headlines but the number of talented youngsters coming through the system is remarkable for an island this size and with them being guided by an excellent group of coaches, don't discount us emulating Namibia and Canada in the years to come.

Roll on 2005.

* THE GCA golf day and presentation evening is being held at La Grande Mare on Friday 8 October. Club secretaries should have the details.