'Our journey is just beginning’
IT WAS as much of a fact-finding mission as a competition for Guernsey Women when they faced their Jersey counterparts last weekend at Grainville.
The hosts completed a clean sweep over the three games to win the Brooks Macdonald Inter-Insular T20I Cup in the first meeting between the two islands for three years, winning the games by nine wickets, 69 runs and 100 runs.
But Guernsey Cricket development manager Ben Ferbrache, who assisted head coach Lee Forshaw on the trip, reported that the Sarnians had learned a lot.
‘We played against a very good Jersey side there, who were coming off success in an ICC tournament [in Paris last month, versus France, Austria and Spain],’ he said.
‘We’re on the same journey they’ve been on for three years, but ours is just starting now.
‘We have a really nice mix of junior and senior players in the squad, right the way down to 13 years old, which exciting for the future, and Lee [Meloy, Jersey women’s head coach] has pointed us in the right direction for who we should be aiming to play against when we get on the ICC ladder.
‘We’re hoping to get ourselves a ranking at the end of this weekend and that will start our journey. Then, from next year we can start planning who we need to go and play, as well as the inter-insular, and then we’ll have structure to the season.’
The results meant that Jersey reclaimed the inter-insular honours after suffering defeat the last time the sides met in 2019.
The hosts had clinched the series victory in Saturday’s back-to-back matches, successfully chasing down 71 for the loss of just one wicket in game one in which Bex Hubbard hit an unbeaten 34 for Guernsey and then restricting the visitors to 67 in game two having racked up 136 batting first.
Guernsey had a steady start to Sunday’s game three, with Jersey taking a more defensive approach.
Maria Da Rocha fell to an early LBW, with just seven runs on the board for Jersey before captain Chloe Greechan stepped out and hit a boundary on the first ball she faced, over long leg.
Had Guernsey’s fielding been more effective, Jersey could have been in trouble on a number of occasions – and seen their total reduced.
Greechan and Charlie Miles took Jersey’s tally beyond 50 runs in the ninth over and Miles hit that mark herself in the 13th.
The skipper was dismissed in the 16th over for 34, caught and bowled by Molly Robinson, but Analise Merritt (20) and Trinity Smith (6) came in to offer suitable support to Miles as she trundled along to register half of Jersey’s 155-run total.
Guernsey scored four runs off the opening two overs of their reply as Greechan gave openers Philippa Stahelin and Fran Bulpitt few opportunities to score and Bulpitt soon found herself caught out.
Flo Copley, who took 2 for 10 in game two on Saturday, then managed to claim two wickets in four balls for the Caesareans, bowling out Stahelin and Hannah Eulenkamp to reduce Guernsey to 5 for 3.
Young Emily Merrien was then stumped to leave the Sarnians 9 for 4.
Once again Hubbard proved the mainstay of the innings, hitting their first boundary and top scoring with 16, but after she departed they were restricting to just 14 more runs in the innings.
