Rich pickings nothing new, as 57 card reveals

FOUR letters - RICH - link the very first inter-insular cricket match with, 50 years on, today's big game at KGV. On Thursday 8 August 1957, Guernsey fielded two Richs, Hilary and Peter. Today, Gary, a cousin to both men, plays his 16th inter-insular at the age of 43.

His Cobo mates regularly rib him of his relatively new veteran status and even the player admits the sands of time are catching up on his Guernsey career.

'I think it will be my last in Guernsey,' said the all-rounder who will be 45 the next time the match is in his home island.

But 16 games is a very decent haul for a product of the Les Beaucamps Secondary cricket academy of Brian Preston.

Rich, the modern one that is, says there is no game quite like the inter-insular.

He has come a long way since joining Cobo as a 15-year-old promising seam-bowling all-rounder.

Made aware of the possible family link with the first game in 1957, Gary was soon checking the family tree and, lo and behold, he found himself to be a second cousin of H. F. Rich and a first cousin to Gary's father, Les.

Born in 1913, Hilary would have been 43 or 44 at the time of the inaugural Jersey match and, like his modern-day namesake, was a right-arm spinner.

Peter Rich is also linked but much younger than Hilary, born in 1934. It is understood he lives in Australia and is still alive.

Alan Hunter, now 80, is one of the few survivors of the first Guernsey side and recalls Hilary as an off-break bowler and a 'cunning' one too.

'Hilary lived in King's Road and Peter in Mount Row,' said Hunter.

The proximity of their homes to the College Field was certainly ideal in days when the GICC took over the ground for the whole of the summer.

The Guernsey Evening Press account of the first game shows that Jersey scored 177 and Guernsey were hanging on for the draw at 106 for seven when rain arrived at six o'clock, 15 minutes before the scheduled end.

It was a game significant for both sets of top-order batting failing.

With Rich 'playing havoc' with the Jersey middle-order the Caesareans were 92 for eight shortly before one o'clock.

'Rich was able to turn the ball both ways, just enough to have the batsmen in difficulty and also bowled the occasional one that left the bat,' reported the paper.

'His slower ball was also very well disguised,' it continued.

Jersey were saved by a ninth-wicket stand of 66 by Bob Treagus and Doug Pitman.

Treagus was eventually bowled by Hilary for 73 and Pitman went in the same manner for 13. The spinner walked off with fine figures of six for 64 from 20.1 overs.

'I'd definitely settle for six,' said his younger second cousin.

'I've been denied five-fours twice,' he added.

'I just want to go out on a high.'

The Jersey innings featured a rare, possibly unique, moment in the history of the fixture: an all-run five.

And by all accounts it was very nearly a nine, as these original paragraphs show.

'On one occasion Treagus hit a ball just short of the cover boundary, he and Pitman ran five and it nearly resulted in a nine.

The 1957 visitors were all out just before three leaving Guernsey three-and-a-quarter hours to get the runs.

After a slow start they lost wickets and with only Hunter of the top six reaching double figures, saving the match was soon the priority.

Thankfully for Guernsey, the tail wagged with skipper 'Nobby' Clark hitting 29 and Johnny Martel an undefeated 30 at number eight to save the day.

So the series was off to an exciting start and has not looked back.

It was, though, still some way off becoming the big event it is now.

In the late fifties, GICC ruled the roost and not all the top players were in action in what was then called the Commercial League.

It was still the days of two-day games between the GICC and JICC, the King George V Field had only just been renovated after the damage caused by the Occupation and there was no Memorial Field as yet.