A couple of weeks ago clubs were informed that this season’s Channel Islands League would be played to a reduced 40-over-per-side format, but it appeared on Saturday that the Seagulls thought they were playing a T20, such was the apparent urgency of their run chase.
Yes, the boundary on the scout hut side at the College Field was a short one as their match with Irregulars was played on one of the eastern-end strips on the square, but Josh Butler and Tom Nightingale were not just clearing the rope, in golfing parlance they were ‘air-mailing’ it by considerable distances.
Having been set 221 for victory, they brutally blitzed the youthful opposing bowling attack from the first ball of the reply, which Butler crashed to the boundary for four without bothering to even set off for a run.
Two more followed in Charlie Forshaw’s opening set, admittedly the third being a streaky inside edge, but that was merely the hors d’oeuvres because Nightingale got himself off the mark with a six off Alfie Gallienne’s first delivery in what proved to be an eye-opening spell for the six-wicket hero of the previous weekend’s U19 inter-insular victory.
The ball kept disappearing as the runs mounted up in double-quick time, the 100-run partnership coming up in just seven overs.
Nightingale won the race to 50, bringing up the milestone from just 16 balls faced, with Butler taking what his batting partner made to look like a pedestrian 33 deliveries.
However, it was Butler who would go on to reach three figures, as Nightingale’s fun came to an end in the 11th when he had made 72 off 29 with four fours and seven sixes out of a first-wicket stand of 139.
Ollie Newey replaced him in the middle, playing the support role while Butler kept motoring.
The opener reached his century halfway through the 17th over having faced exactly 10 of them by that stage and he went on to finish 122 not out from 66 balls with 18 fours and four maximums.
In the circumstances, the second innings fireworks somewhat put Luke Le Tissier’s earlier hundred in the shade, but it had been a captain’s innings on a day when Irregulars were missing several big names – while also gaining one as Stuart Le Prevost made a rare appearance to feature alongside his son.
In the absence of his namesake Ed Robinson, Ed Le Prevost was promoted to open but he fell early on to bring Le Tissier to the wicket.
He rode his luck on a couple of occasions as chances went to ground, but the skipper also played some outstanding shots as he mixed the type of traditional stroke play the ground has played host to for so many years with the occasional trademark reverses. The pull for six with which he past 50 was particularly sweetly struck.
He had lost three partners before Irregulars had faced 16 overs, but he found an ally in the older Forshaw, with whom he added 145 for the fifth-wicket before Le Tissier departed shortly after reaching his ton. His run-a-ball 101 contained a dozen fours and one other six.
Forshaw fell in the same Mattie Collivet over, having contributed 59 to his side’s cause, with the rest of the order getting Irregulars up to 220 all out.
It proved to be about the same again short of a winning total.
