Planning for a promotion
GUERNSEY have all the tools at their disposal to succeed in their promotion push next week in the Netherlands despite being whitewashed by Jersey last weekend, according to their coach.
Ash Wright was bitterly disappointed to see his side suffer three straight defeats in the inaugural InfrasoftTech T20 Inter-Insular Series at Farmer’s Field – particularly losing the first two games when chasing less than 130 both times – but he has backed his squad to rise to the challenge of the ICC World T20 Europe Qualifier, where they face Gibraltar, Israel, Sweden, Norway and Czech Republic in Group C.
The top two teams in the group will progress.
‘I think both teams fielded and bowled excellently over the weekend. We both played the power-play badly, but [Jersey] got over the line and made sure they won the game,’ Wright said. ‘The difference between the teams was that they made a win happen and I think we were just sort of hoping it was going to happen.
‘It’s a little bit frustrating because we’ve got a good team and we have played some really good cricket up to this point.
‘I just don’t know what it is about Jersey, we just don’t seem to make it work against them. I see it all the time, I see it in the youth system and everything – as soon as we play against that red shirt, something changes and it’s something we need to address.
‘We’ve definitely got the skill to do it, we just need to get over the line and then, going forward, it should make us better for it.’
Despite calling it a tricky wicket to bat on with a big outfield, the Guernsey coach admitted that that ‘whenever you keep a team to 120 or 128, you should be winning those games’.
‘The second game was the most disappointing because we really should have won. An excellent piece of fielding from Jonty Jenner that stopped a six and then in the next over we chipped one up and got caught – it’s small margins in T20 and we always seem to be chasing the game against them.
‘The message going forward is that we’ve just got to stick with the plans.
‘That one weekend doesn’t make us a bad team – we have gone from playing very strong teams and playing great cricket to not so good, but we’ve got to stick together, make sure we’ve got our plans sorted, make sure we’re very clear on what we are doing, work hard and stay in the moment and play as good cricket as we can.
‘I’m sure if we do then results will take care of themselves.’
