“These are the kind of teams we want to be challenging ourselves against.”
Those were the sentiments echoed by both Jersey Cricket head coach Paul Hutchison and stand-in captain Jonty Jenner, after Jersey gave their Zimbabwean counterparts a tough contest. New Farnley Cricket Club in Leeds played host to the Jersey National XI against the Zimbabwe A U25 side, in two one-day 50-over-aside fixtures last week.
With regular captain Chuggy Perchard unavailable, Jenner took the reigns for these fixtures and was very impressed with what he saw from his young side.
“Both these matches acted as a great run out for all of us,” said the star batter.
“We are still coming off the back of our excellent T20 success a couple of weeks ago, so to get to be back in the one-day format and find our rhythm of play again was very important.”
The first game was an excellent contest, with Zimbabwe A batting first and scoring 262 and Jersey falling just 24 runs short.
However, the Caesareans held long periods of control, but a century from Brian Bennett and an impressive last wicket stand salvaged their innings. In the run chase, two superb half centuries from Zak Tribe (58) and Dom Blampied (54), backed up by an energetic 41 from wicket-keeper Jake Dunford kept them in the hunt, but they just fell short in the end.
Jenner continued: “I thought we bowled fantastically well in game one.
“Having Chris Carnegie back was great for us, we haven’t seen him in a Jersey shirt for a couple of years so it’s great to see him steaming in and swinging the new ball.
“Julius [Sumerauer] was also excellent and bowling fast, we had them in all sorts of trouble, it’s just a shame we let them get a few too many in the end.
“But Zak [Tribe] and Blamps were outstanding with the bat and really gave us a sniff, as well as Dunny with his 41, that’s as good as I’ve seen him bat in a Jersey shirt.”
Game two saw a role reversal, as Jersey this time made first use of the deck with bat in hand.
Zak Tribe was again the star, scoring a magnificent 90 and just missing out on a deserved century.
Tribe was well backed up by 38 again from Blampied and an unbeaten 32 from Ben Ward, but the men in red were bowled out inside 43 overs for just 213.
The stand-in skipper added: “Not batting our overs cost us in the second game.
“Realistically, we were well below par, despite another excellent knock from Tribey.
“They came out with good intent in the chase and we just didn’t have enough on the board, but I cannot fault anything from the lads.
“These are the kind of challenges we want to test ourselves against.
“This Zimbabwe side will be better than any team we will face in our ICC group stage competitions coming up, so we can take massive confidence away knowing we competed well.
“We would like to thank New Farnley CC for being wonderful hosts and to the Zimbabwe side for squeezing us into their schedule.
“All the boys loved it and everything is continuing to move in the right direction for us.”
Jersey head coach, Paul Hutchison also added his thoughts, saying: “It was a really enjoyable few days.
“The fact that Zimbabwe brought such a strong squad shows how highly they rate Jersey Cricket.
“Although we didn’t get a win, some of the individual performances were outstanding.
“Zak Tribe and Dom Blampied were very impressive with the bat, as well as Jake Dunford and other cameos in the lower middle order, it’s good to see we have lads all through the line-up who can contribute.
“I thought we were excellent with the ball throughout as well.
“We controlled periods of both matches and were maybe 70/80% of the way there, we just need to get better at maintaining those periods of dominance for longer.
“These are extremely valuable lessons though and superb preparation for us moving forwards.
“We set ourselves high standards as a collective and we want to continue to play against the best opposition we can.
“For the lads to mix it with some Test level cricketers was a great opportunity and something they should be really proud of.
“Our strength in depth is really strong and something that is going to be so important for this young group moving forwards in this ICC cycle, we’re all looking forward to September now and seeing what we can achieve.”
Full scorecards in today’s JEP
