Guernsey's tour to the Netherlands ends with defeat

After being bowled out for just 127 by a strong Dutch side in the second of their two 50-over fixtures of the trip, the Sarnians and their hosts agreed to revise the target to 241 as part of Guernsey’s inter-insular preparations and the Netherlands still finalising their World Cup squad.

They reached that target in 48.5 overs for the loss of six wickets, of which David Hooper picked up two and there was one apiece for Luke Bichard, Dane Mullen and Tom Nightingale as well as a run out in an encouraging display in the field.

Sybrand Engelbrecht hit an unbeaten 107.

Earlier, Guernsey’s innings had got off to a poor start against some quality seam bowling in helpful conditions from Kyle Klein and Vivian Kingma as they slipped to 6 for 3 with both openers, Charlie Birch and Josh Butler, as well as captain Matt Stokes all falling for ducks.

That brought the Nightingale brothers together at the crease and they managed to dig Guernsey out of the sizeable hole they were in with a valuable fourth-wicket stand of 90.

Ollie was the more conservative of the siblings as he made a patient 32 from 71 deliveries with just one boundary while Tom was typically aggressive in his approach as he made it back-to-back half-centuries against the Dutch.

The in-form No 5 hit 60 from 75 balls with seven fours and a six.

However, once their partnership was broken by a fine delivery from left-arm orthodox spinner Clayton Floyd that turned sharply and accounted for the older sibling, wickets started to tumble once more.

Floyd ended up with three, as did leg-spinner Shariz Ahmad who picked up the scalp of Tom Nightingale among them.

Alex Bushell, who made 10, was the only other Guernsey batter to reach double figures.