'Evening league has role to play' - Hearse

GUERNSEY manager Dave Hearse agrees that changes need to be made to cricket on the island, but acknowledges that some will be more difficult to implement than others. Guernsey Cricket Board chairman Dave Piesing spelt out his proposals for improvements so that the island's top players are prepared for international cricket.

Guernsey was awarded the International Cricket Council affiliate member status last month.

Piesing believes that the senior island squad members should be encouraged to move clubs to spread out the talent to make the leagues more competitive.

At present the island squad are mainly centred on Total Cobo, Clubhouse Optimists and C&W Rovers and this has proved detrimental to the quality of cricket played in the top league, as the lower teams regularly get turned over by the top three.

'The evening league has a role to play and it needs to continue,' said Hearse.

'The standard of the evening league hasn't been tremendous this season. Too many top players are playing for the same clubs.

'It's a fantastic idea to get players to move, but it will be very hard to get them to do it, it's up to the players themselves. We also have to look at the interests of the clubs and the interests of the player and not just of the island.

'We're going to think about this in depth after this season has finished.'

Hearse sees things getting more serious for his squad as they look to go further on the international stage.

Next July, Guernsey will be involved in an ICC European division two tournament in Scotland, where they will play the likes of Jersey, France and Germany to try to obtain promotion into division one.

From there qualification to the ICC trophy and ultimately the World Cup in 2011 is possible.

Guernsey's opponents from last month in Sussex, Bermuda, has just achieved qualification for the World Cup 2007.

The Gus Logie-coached team were reportedly training up to four times a week in preparation and under Piesing's recommendations, the island players would train at least twice a week together and therefore miss evening league games.

'We have to have the same focus for our tournament next July as the Bermudians did,' said Hearse.

'We have to win that tournament. We have to qualify for division one.

'The squad will have to train together more and we will have to find more quality cricket and that means locally in the leagues and getting teams over.

'Cricket is changing on the island and we have to make sure it is going in the right direction.'

Matt Oliver, the island and Cobo opening batsman, acknowledges that his priorities will have to shift more towards the island team than his club side.

'I've no problems with forsaking evening league as the standard is not great at the moment,' he said.

'It's only going to benefit the standard of the island team if they train more together, but I'm convinced that getting guys to move will not work. Take Stu Le Prevost for example, he's played for Cobo all his life. Telling him he going to have to change clubs is not going to work.'

But someone who believes the GCA need to act on how many island squad members are at each club is Rovers' stalwart Richard Hamilton.

The all-rounder has been involved in top-flight league cricket on the island for more than 20 years.

'The GCA has got a real challenge on their hands,' he said.

'While the development of the island squad is critical, they also need to consider the needs of the club players who play week in, week out and have done so for many years without any representative aspirations. The bottom line is that the best players need to be playing against each other regularly to develop their skills, so spreading the talent more evenly is vital.

'However, the GCA can't simply hope that some senior players take it upon themselves to move clubs because in the main they won't.

'Developing a draft system for newcomers to the island is one solution and another would be to perhaps extend that to under-21s, so spreading the currently limited pool of junior talent around rather than allowing one or two clubs to regularly harvest all the best players and then allow them to languish in their respective B teams.

'I think the last measure to be considered could be to cap the number of Island squad players that any one club can have registered - possibly to four at weekends and two in the evenings. That would then enable the GCB to arrange fixtures and training at the same time as scheduled fixtures in the knowledge that they would not be unfairly impacting the outcome of matches, providing an even playing field for everyone.'