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Three Guernsey teams in CI Championship Semi-Finals
David Piesing
The third and final round of the group phase of the NatWest Channel Islands Club Championships witnessed three exciting and close games and ended with Guernsey's Optimists grabbing the fourth semi-final berth.
Group A
Jersey's Rathbones Old Victorians topped the group after edging out Jersey champions Romerils by just 8 runs. OVs batted first and made a useful 203 for 5 in their 45 overs with Chris Jones top-scoring with 80 and Andy Dewhurst chipping in with 66. In reply, Romerils could only make 195 for 8 despite 72 from Ian Crocker and 47 from Ryan Driver as Jones completed a fine all-round day with 3 for 27.
Meanwhile in Guernsey, Mavericks racked up a huge 287 for 6 against an under-strength Air Search Rovers at College Field, with Justin Walker making 90, Vince Kenny 62 and Jaco Pieterse 42 not out. Rovers' opening pair of Mark Huntingdon and John Baker put on a century stand for the first wicket in reply, with Huntingdon to-scoring with 71, but they could only reach 192 for 4 in their 45 overs.
So OVs won the group with an average of 38.5 points, finising ahead of Mavericks on 37 points, both teams qualifying for the semi-finals. Romerils were left to rue their opening defeat at home to Mavericks while Rovers will be very disappointed with their poor showing with three heavy losses.
Group A
By mid-match Guernsey champions Total Cobo knew that they had already qualified for the semi-finals as their opponents, Marlborough Trust Optimists, only earned 5 bowling points and so could not catch them. However, in a thrilling game Optimists almost pulled off a fantastic victory but after the result in Jersey went their way they still qualified for the semi-finals by just 2 bonus points.
Cobo batted first and made 209 for 5 in their 45 overs, with Jeremy Frith making 57, Peter Vidamour 43 and Matt Oliver 30. Optimists got off to a brisk start as Tim de Putron (54) rode his luck, but Ami Banerjee (55) dug in with Andy Biggins (56) as the pair got Optimists down to needing 9 and over off the last three over with 7 wickets in hand. Banerjee then holed out to long-on off Stuart Le Prevost's occasional off-breaks and with Biggins continuing to keep the run rate going, Optimists needed 9 off the last over and then four off the last ball bowled by TJ Ozanne but Biggins failed to make contact and was stumped to leave Optimists 3 runs short in a thrilling finish.
In Jersey, Fairbairn Sporting Club Francais made 180 for 4 against St Ouen with skipper Matt Hague making 104 not out and with Tony Carlyon making 39. St Ouens were always in the hunt thanks to Dean Morrison (57) and Dave Morfee (35) but a flurry of late wickets left them 166 all out with more than 4 overs remaining to lose by just 14 runs.
Cobo won all three group games so topped the group by some distance but the other three teams all managed to beat other and so it came to the slim margin of bonus points. Optimists just made it with 64 points, with St Ouen ending on 62 and SCF finishing with 61.
The semi-final line-up for 1st September is therefore:-
Rathbones Old Victorians (Jersey) v Marlborough Trust Optimists (Guernsey) at Grainville
Total Cobo (Guernsey) v Mavericks (Guernsey) at KGV
© Guernsey Cricket Board
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