This Is Guernsey

By Gareth Le Prevost

GUERNSEY should be aiming to break into the top three divisions of the ICC World League, according to Dave Piesing.

The Guernsey Cricket Board chairman (pictured) was reacting to Jersey’s ‘fantastic achievement’ of qualifying for the Division Four tournament in October having reached the final of their own Division Five event last week.

‘Those Jersey players will say that the [semi-final] win over the USA and qualifying for Division Four is the highlight of their careers and while that’s true to date, I don’t believe for one moment that Division Four should be, or will be, their or our ceiling,’ said Piesing.

‘There is no reason why the bar cannot continue to be raised by both islands.’ October’s tournament in Tanzania will comprise the hosts, Hong Kong, Italy, Fiji, Jersey and Afghanistan, who beat the Caesareans in Saturday’s Division Five final.

Piesing believes Jersey have a decent chance to progress from that event as well.

‘They have cleared every hurdle placed in front of them and proved that they know how to play tournament cricket,’ he said.

That is something Guernsey have yet to do, having finished fifth in their only ICC senior event so far – the 2006 European Division Two Champion-ship in which Jersey were runners-up.

‘We know where we stand in comparison to Jersey and the one missing piece of the jigsaw so far is proving that we can do it in tournament conditions,’ Piesing said.

‘We get that chance in August [when Guernsey hosts the European Division Two Championship] and indeed get two opportunities to play against Jersey within a fortnight, once away [in the inter-insular] and once at home.

‘That really is something to look forward to and they will be by far the biggest inter-insulars yet.

‘Playing and beating strong sides in competitive friendlies is one thing. Doing it when it matters in a tournament is something else but the only way that we can learn to play tournament cricket is to participate in tournaments.’

He added that seeing Jersey succeed at this level can only inspire the Guernsey team, who beat their old rivals in April as part of the Caesareans’ preparations for last week.

‘I know there are still one or two sceptics who question the viability of what we are striving to achieve, but hopefully the achievement of Jersey will prove to them that our ambitions to progress are realistically achievable,’ Piesing said.

‘We are going down the right road at the moment and making big strides through the efforts of Dave Hearse, Jeremy Frith, Keith Greenfield and Andy Cornford and the very hard work and commitment of the squad, but there is still a lot more that we can do.

‘There are some excellent discussions going on right at the moment about how we might be able to restructure our top level of weekend cricket to better prepare our current and future international players for what lies ahead of them on the international stage.

‘Those ideas will be aired in the proper forum before too long after first discussing them with Jersey, who face many of the same issues and challenges as us.

‘However, it might be best to wait a few days until Jersey’s well-deserved hangover has cleared.’