County cricket sides have been coming to Guernsey for half-a-century. Rob Batiste reflects on some big-hitting, trees and odd moments THREE things struck me by the 2007 Barclays Wealth Twenty20+ Challenge.

Thankfully, one of them was not one of Graeme Hick’s mighty blows.

In no particular order they were: the Channel Islands’ finest are still some way short of the clean hitting and timing of the best professionals, the Guernsey public still remain largely unenthusiastic about watching county players and, finally, what on earth have they done to my favourite trees?

The trees first.

The wife is always harsh on my pruning skills, accusing me of killing off this, that and other shrubs left in a state of ugly baldness by my reckless hands.

With that in mind, I just hope the guys who gave a third of the KGV poplars the severest of lops know what they are doing, because when they get around to lopping the rest, a bad job could leave my favourite domestic ground sadly characterless, even if you no longer need X-ray vision to see the ball coming out of the dark background.

Watching Hick belting the white ball to all parts, but largely into an area of poplars as yet unharmed by helmeted men with power saws, left me in awe and recalling other fearsome hitters to have come to these shores in the name of exhibition cricket.

There have been some notable ones, too.

Gordon Greenidge, Garry Sobers, Kirti Azad and Chris Cairns are four of the biggest crashers of cricket balls I’ve seen locally.

What’s more I can proudly boast to have stopped a full-blooded Greenidge square cut one-handed and as if I was plucking a ripe tomato.

No English county has played here more often than Hampshire and in one of their more recent visits, during the spell KGV was out of action as it was revamped and properly drained, yours truly was in a midweek GIAAC side that took on Greenidge and co at the Osmond Priaulx Field.

In truth, we probably should not have played.

Firstly, a typical Rockmount lunch left many of the 22 protagonists not as sharp as they might have been after a delayed start due to heavy rain and the ground was barely fit for rugby, let alone cricket.

And it was against this background that I stood at square cover as Greenidge, possibly the hardest square cutter the game has known, took a step back, put all his weight onto his back foot and creamed a short ball my way.

A fielder’s normal reaction time for such a shot would be in the region of 0.5sec. On this occasion, it was more like 5sec. as the ball cut through the mud like a torpedo before, all brown and showing no seam whatsoever, ground virtually to a standstill in front of me.

The other outstanding memory from that day is that we, the outclassed locals, actually won.

I stood at the other end as Hampshire offie Nigel Cowley, now a first-class umpire, bowled the final ball to Gerve Brazier with seven required to win.

Cowley deliberately bowled a no-ball to bring the target down to six and when he properly delivered his next legal attempt, Gerve stuck his left leg down the track, swiped as hard as he could and deposited the ball over the short mid-wicket fence and onto the then dirt running track. That taught them a lesson.

I have every confidence that Hampshire’s first visits to the island were a good deal more serious.

John Le Poidevin, the former island cricketer and Guernsey Press sports editor, recalls Hampshire first arriving here in the 1950s under the captaincy of Colin Ingleby-McKenzie.

When our ‘home’ county returned in 1968, they were under the leadership of white West Indian test player Roy Marshall and, guesting among their ranks was Sobers, arguably the finest all-round cricketer that has ever lived.

He did not disappoint, hammering 50 one day and 33 not out the other.

In two games, Hampshire totalled 502 runs and bowled Guernsey out for 71 and 61.

Four years later they were back with another stunning opening batting partnership and probably the best Hampshire have ever fielded: Greenidge and the South African Barry Richards.

Greenidge struggled at the College Field, Pierre Le Cocq having him caught by the biggest man ever to play for the island, John ‘Tiny’ Rogers, who when batting appeared to be holding nothing bigger than a rolling pin in his hand.

But Richards, the brilliant craftsman as he was, gave the Guernsey close fielders something to gape about.

In scoring a half-century he deliberately stroked boundaries with the edge of his bat.

The only shame was that the local public were about as interested in seeing top cricketers as they are today.

Despite the fantastic efforts of the Lord Taverners, take away the kids involved in the Kwik cricket games last Saturday and those in for a tented lobster lunch and auction, the sporting folk of Guernsey stayed away.

Not even the first inter-insular Twenty20 could lure the public in for a freebie exhibition.

How you remedy that, I have not the foggiest.

One possible answer is to play the double-header in the heart of the season when the winter sporting programmes have yet to take off.

The only problem with that, I guess, is that you would then be restricted to which county sides are available.

I seriously doubt that will happen and the end-of-season bash will remain in place, still treated with contempt by those who like their sport 100% serious, no matter what the standard.