Centurion Jenner steals the show in Jersey victory
A GUERNSEY-BORN cricketer was the star of the show at the KGV on Saturday. Unfortunately for the home side, he was wearing red.
Jonty Jenner, the son of former Jersey and Guernsey captain Ward, hit a magnificent century as part of a record-breaking stand of 208 in partnership with teenager Zak Tribe, to turn what had been an even inter-insular contest over the first 25 overs into a comprehensive 173-run victory for the visitors.
‘The inter-insular is still a big day across both the islands and, obviously, family-wise we’re a bit of Jersey and a bit of Guernsey, so it’s nice to score a hundred today,’ said 25-year-old Jenner, whose father was watching on proudly.
‘He was giving me the spiel last night about how important the inter-insular is, so I pretended I was interested, but I’m sure it will be nice to have beer with him and have a chat through that one,’ added Jenner jnr.
When he and Tribe came together, Guernsey had reduced Jersey to 108 for 4 halfway through their innings, but the brilliant unbroken fifth-wicket stand led the visitors to a mammoth 316.
A deflated Sarnian side were then bowled out for 143 in reply.
‘The boys who had batted at the top had quite tough work for the first 20 overs, I think the wicket was just drying out a little bit, but they actually set up the game really nicely and it was a good platform for myself and Zak to come in,’ said the player-of-the-match.
‘Zak obviously hasn’t played loads and loads of games for us, but he batted beautifully to finish 96 not out there as well.
‘So it was nice to bat with Zak, we ran really well between the wickets, hit boundaries when we needed to, so it was a really good day from a batting point of view and we backed it up in the field as well.
‘The wicket was probably flattening out a little bit, Guernsey have played a lot of cricket of late against good sides so we knew they’d be right up for it. It’s an inter-insular at home, so we still had to bowl and field well, which I think we did for the most part, so it’s really nice to get a very comprehensive win,’ Jenner added.
Guernsey captain Matt Stokes admitted the game had been won by something special.
‘I definitely thought at 108 for 4 after 25 overs, if we could just nip two more wickets – 130 for 6 is a completely different game,’ he said.
‘But then a quite brilliant partnership of 200, without really giving a chance – one really in the 25 overs they batted together – took the game away from us.’
Match report in Monday's Guernsey Press.
