And it turned out to be a great day for the newcomers in the Championship as the Isle of Man and Guernsey both won yesterday to join Jersey in an all-British top group.
Captain Tom Wherry steered Jersey to their second consecutive win with a well-compiled 53 in a seven-wicket success with a massive 21.1 overs to spare.
Wherry featured in a 65-run opening partnership with Sam de la Haye to lay the foundations and further sensible batting was continued by Ed Farley and Mark Chipperfield as they contributed with 30 and 21 not out respectively helping Jersey home.
Earlier Wherry, who scored his runs off 58 balls, won the toss and put Gibraltar in on a damp, soft pitch and it was a good decision as they had a fine start with Chipperfield claiming two early wickets.
Chipperfield and Tom Gibbs both finished with two wickets while slow left-armer James Perchard took three wickets for 21 runs in ten-over spell.
Wherry said: ‘It was a very good toss to win, there was a lot of moisture in the pitch and Gibraltar would have made the same decision and bowled first too.
‘It was hard to score runs on and Gibraltar struggled to get going.
We had a high intensity in the field, too, which helped keep the pressure on them too.
‘After doing the hard part of keeping the runs down our batters did their jobs, too.
Yes, personally, it was nice to get a few runs as well.
‘We’ve had two successes to date and we’ve won our group which was our aim.
We now have to forget about those victories and focus on our next two games.
‘We have to start again; just like the Isle of Man and Guernsey have to.
Although we have a few players who have played against the Isle of Man in various age groups over the years we don’t know too much about them.
‘We know a lot more about Guernsey and they will know a lot about us.
But for the moment we have to focus on today’s game and hopefully we can keep our good form going.’ Guernsey had an emphatic seven-wicket win against France at the FB Fields yesterday to win Group C.
The Sarnians ran up 271 runs for six wickets in their 50 overs before dismissing France for 74.
Highest Jon Clark and Will Thompson went at a run a ball for the first ten overs and then Jon Warr and Kris Moherndal featured in a fourth-wicket partnership of 152 – the highest partnership of the tournament to date.
Moherndl scored 55 runs off 65 balls while Warr remained undefeated on 92 after facing 133 deliveries.
Seamer Peter Le Hegarat took three quick wickets for 15 runs as France stuttered to 31 for four.
Medium-pacer James Mullen took four wickets for 21 runs in six overs including a hat-trick.
His 21 runs also included ten wides! The Isle of Man, Jersey’s opponents at the College Field today, secured a seven-wicket win against Germany at Les Quennevais to win Group B.
Winning the toss and electing to bat, Germany were soon in trouble at 29 for three before skipper Kashif Mahmood and wicketkeeper Haris Bhatti restored parity with a 53-run fourth-wicket stand.
After Bhatti departed Mahmood continued steadily with Tarun Rawat, but when captain Mahmood was run out it signalled another collapse and Germany slumped to 114 for eight.
Christoph Schulte-Cloos helped them through to 147 before Max Stokoe took the last two wickets to finish with three for 17.
Pankaj Bedi picked up both openers at the start of the Manx innings to put the islanders on 11 for two, but brothers Ricky and Danny Kniveton took the match beyond Germany’s reach with a stand of 94 for the third wicket.
Danny was the more aggressive, making 58 from 70 balls, while Ricky again played a captain’s innings and was there at the end unbeaten on 47.
