World Cup dream lies in tatters

GUERNSEY'S European Division One and World Cup dreams lie in tatters today after successive defeats over the weekend. The Sarnians went into the ECC European Division Two Championships with the aim of conquering all to join the likes of Scotland, Ireland, Holland and Denmark in the European top flight and be in reach of a place at the 2011 World Cup.

But crushing defeats at the hands of Germany and Greece where the island team twice under-performed, have put paid to that dream.

Instead, they have finished bottom of the group and now face the serious possibility of relegation into the third division if they lose the next two play-off fixtures.

'I'm disappointed in the players and I'm disappointed for the players,' said manager Dave Hearse.

'They are better players than what they have shown in the tournament.'

Guernsey's problem lay with their top-order batsmen not scoring enough runs. When chasing Germany's total of 243, the greens fell by 58 runs. Yesterday they only managed to post 131 that the Greeks knocked off for the loss of just one wicket.

'Our best batsmen are not performing,' said Hearse.

'If we want to do well at this level we've got to get our best batsmen performing to the best of their ability.'

To add to their woes, the first of these matches is against Israel, with all of the security issues that go with it. More than 70 anti-Israeli protestors tried to disrupt their game with Norway on Saturday.

Tomorrow's match is to be played on an unnamed RAF base to try and make the match as secure as possible. The organisers have asked that the media do not release the name of the base until the game has started.

'We've got a game behind closed doors in a secure zone,' said Hearse.

'There are no issues, we're playing a cricket game of 11 versus 11.

'They are now going to have to come to the party if they don't want to play in Division Three next year.

'They have got to dust themselves down and hopefully show what they are capable of.'

Greece finished on top of group one by winning all three of their matches. Guernsey, along with Germany and Gibraltar, all won a single game and lost two but the Sarnians' inferior net run rate ensured that they propped up the table.

Guernsey's technical coach Jack Birkenshaw wants to see wholesale changes in the squad.

'We didn't play anywhere near to our potential,' he said.

'We've got to go back to basics and it appears we don't have the players in the team at the moment who can do that. We're nowhere near good enough.

'We've got to look at getting some youngsters in. We've got to identify two or three young players who can do a job for us and work with them.

'I think we were making steps last year and now we've taken a few steps back. We've let ourselves and our supporters in Guernsey down.'

In group two, Israel finished in third place to ensure their play-off with Guernsey. Jersey took second spot after getting the better of group leaders Norway yesterday, while France finished fourth after losing to the Israelis.