Super-soft KGV will be ready for Dutch T20 squad
FOOTBALL commitments will keep Jason Martin and Will Fazakerley out of Guernsey’s opening T20 international games this coming weekend.
Netherlands A arrive for three T20 and one 50-over clash in three days, all at the KGV, which is still seeing the effects of the wettest winter in living memory.
Eight days before the start of the season large parts of the outfield remain remarkably soft and spongy, but with the weather finally set fair head groundsman and former island captain Stu Le Prevost is confident that while the ball might not be exactly zipping across the western side of the ground, at least it will not land and self-crater, which would have been the case this week.
‘The forecast is good and it is drying daily, so we’ll get there,’ said Le Prevost, who admits it has been a depressingly wet winter for him.
‘It’s certainly the wettest since I’ve been a groundsman.
‘We had six inches of rain in January and five in March.
‘Because of that we are a month behind in our prep period.’
Fellow groundsman Josh Butler will be working hard to improve matters, not least because the Netherlands mark the start of his official tenure as Island T20 captain.
He plays on all three days after a successful winter’s cricket in Perth and he leads four notably youthful sides.
Left-arm seamer Jordon Martel comes back into the frame after missing the whole of 2017 and a new face is the South African seam bowler Charles Vorster, who impressed in Irregulars colours last summer.
As for the Dutch, their squad includes the newly-appointed national captain, Pieter Seelaar.
Only this Wednesday Seelaar was appointed to lead the side after Peter Borren announced his retirement from international cricket.
Seelaar will skipper the side on the Guernsey tour, which follows last year’s rain-affected spring visit when honours were even.
The third and final game had to be abandoned because of rain, but previously the home side won the evening T20 match by four wickets before the Dutch emerged victorious by three wickets in the 50-over contest.
Guernsey teams:
Saturday, 4.30pm
Butler, Ben Fitchet, Lucas Barker, Olly Newey, Tom Nightingale, Ben Ferbrache, Dave Hooper, Dan Le Messurier, Jordon Martel, Will Peatfield, Max Ellis, Matt Philp, Max Sharpe.
Sunday, 11am (50 overs)
Butler, Fitchet, Newey, Matt Stokes, Tom Nightingale, Ferbrache, Le Messurier, Jordon Martel, Charles Vorster, Peatfield, Ellis, Dec Martel.
Monday, Noon and 4.30pm
Butler, Le Messurier, Barker, Matt Stokes, Tom Nightingale, Olly Nightingale, Ferbrache, Hooper, Dec Martel, Philp, Matt Breban, Jordon Martel, Newey.
