Griffins captain Le Tissier leads by example

The Guernsey champions hammered their Irish counterparts Brigade by 53 runs in the opening Group B match at the Cartama Oval in Malaga to make an early statement of intent against the group’s top seeds in the T10 competition.

It was a day to remember for Griffins captain Luke Le Tissier.

After winning the toss and opting to bat, the skipper made a quickfire 50 from just 23 balls, hitting three sixes as well as half-a-dozen fours to set his side up for a higher-than-average total of 129 for 5.

In the shortest format of the game, all of the Griffins line-up looked to get on with it from as soon as they took guard with every one of their batsmen scoring quicker than a run a ball, but it was an unbroken sixth-wicket stand of 35 between David Hooper and Glenn Le Tissier that put the icing on the cake as far as the Griffins innings was concerned.

The reply was almost over before it had begun with seamer Luke Bichard taking two wickets in his opening over.

Although opener Graeme McCarter made a useful 30 for the Irish champions, they never looked like threatening the Griffins total as the Guernsey outfit bowled intelligently and fielded brilliantly.

Hooper, in particularly, shone in the deep, taking three catches and effecting another as he relayed the ball onto Adam Martel before stepping over the boundary rope.

Skipper Le Tissier finished as the pick of the bowlers with 4 for 14 from his two overs in a man-of-the-match performance while there was a wicket for Jordon Martel and two for Adam Wakeford in the final overs as Brigade finished on 76 for 9.

Griffins have two games today as they face Zagreb Sokol of Croatia (8am GMT) and Bjorvika from Norway (12noon).

Those two sides went head-to-head yesterday with Bjorvika coming out on top by seven wickets with three balls to spare.

Bjorvika had lost their opening game to Royal Tigers from Hungary by 36 runs yesterday morning.