‘Good to live up to favourites tag’ says Guernsey captain Butler

The air bridge between the two islands allowed the national sides to face each other for the first time in 16 years, with a narrow eight-run victory in the second game sandwiched by two comfortable run chases for the Sarnians, but for Josh Butler it proved a valuable exercise as he wants winning to become a habit with his squad.

‘I think a good team win is more valuable than losing 10 close games,’ said the Guernsey skipper, referring to some of the high-class opposition they have faced from the Sussex Academy and the Netherlands in recent summers.

‘Until you know when you are going away to play in a tournament, you can’t really use these games too much [to decide on tactics] because the squad might change etc., but hopefully it will be a confidence boost for the guys.

‘I know in a lot of the Guernsey [representative] cricket we play, we are the underdogs and we play against Jersey a lot who are a very good team, so to play against a team where, I guess, we were favourites and they were underdogs actually was quite nice for us because we could puff our chests out and really go for it as such, rather than thinking we are going to have to play a perfect game to win.

‘We had a bit more leeway this time and so to have three wins was very pleasing.’

Butler added that while the second match was ‘hard fought’, he was always confident that his side would defend the 146 they made as their strength is ‘out of the powerplay and restricting teams’.

He concluding by picking out some of the major positives from the weekend.

‘The big thing that stood out for me is our fielding,’ Butler said.

‘Guernsey have always been a good fielding unit, but I think we maybe lost that for a couple of years, so to see those fielding performances, it was really pleasing.

‘Individually, Luke Bichard came into the team and bowled really well.

‘Then, obviously, Zak Damarell starred with the bat in two of the games as well. He is hitting it nicely at the moment.’