IT could be argued that one ball, the first of the innings, decided the fate of the NatWest Channel Islands Club Championship at Grainville on Saturday as Rathbones Old Victorians beat Guernsey Mavericks by 123 runs.

An innocuous loosener by Lee Gallienne was carved by opening batsman Jonny Gough to Mavericks’ captain Justin Meades – who put the chance down.

Thereafter Gough, ably assisted by his captain, Chris Jones, went on to forge a 250 partnership.

While Gough (153 not out) and Jones (100 not out) were to put this game out of Mavericks’ reach as they amassed 295 for two from 45 overs, having been put in to bat, for the visiting captain the day’s play was filled with frustration.

‘If I had taken that first wicket, first ball, it would have changed the whole tone of the game,’ said Meades afterwards.

‘But I dropped it.

Ultimately, we didn’t get enough wickets, but I also think OVs deserved their win because they were outstanding in the field.

They were restricting us to ones, when they had been running twos.

We never had any momentum and having to chase such a big total, we lost early wickets because of that early pressure.

‘Even though we lost the game, we beat both the islands’ champions to get here.’ Put into bat, OVs were 131 after 30 overs and were struggling to score runs before, in the final stages of the game, both Gough and Jones accelerated the rate to a run a ball.

Against tired bowling and against a team whose average age was just a little under 40, they took the score to 295, which was always going to be a huge ask of the visiting players.

In reply, and despite G H Smit’s defiant 58 before he was caught Jones, bowled Ben Searson, Mavericks struggled to keep wickets and score runs.

Eventually they were all out for 172, with Tom Minty, back to the OVs side after injury, claiming two wickets for 13 runs.

‘Before the game we spoke about how each one of the first four batsmen had to stand up and be counted,’ said OVs captain Chris Jones.

‘We had decent batsmen to come in after that, but we needed a big score from any one of the first four.

The ball was moving around early on, which made it hard to score.

I think after 14 overs I’d only scored 14 runs.

But the game was played in a really good atmosphere and I feel for Meadsie when he dropped that catch.’ Jonny Gough was man of the match, Chris Jones scored his 100 off the last ball of the OVs’ innings and Matt Smith and Ed Farley both took excellent catches to get rid of Simon Huxtable (0) and Vince Kenny (12) to effectively end the Mavericks’ chances of winning.