I ENJOYED a conversation with Island cricket captain Matt Hague on Saturday afternoon.

Matt is off to Tanzania soon and I wish him and his Jersey team-mates every success in the ICC World Cricket League Division IV.

I do believe that Jersey will beat more sides than they’ll lose to, although the pitches of Tanzania will certainly provide a new experience to our Jersey boys.

‘Tanzania will be a tough call, but we’re up for the challenge,’ said the amiable Australian during his club side’s defeat to Guernsey’s Cobo in the semi-final of the NatWest Channel Islands Cricket Club Championship on Saturday.

Fairbairn SCF were in the process of losing, by 19 runs, to a Guernsey club team who were merciless in their pursuit of glory at Grainville and, on a pitch with a slow outfield, the Sarnians richly deserved their win.

In a game reduced to a Twenty/20 competition, the highlight was Jeremy Frith’s 19th over, which ran as follows: ‘wicket, dot ball, wicket, dot ball, wicket, wicket.’ In all of the years I have been following Jersey cricket, I have never seen, in one six-ball over, such a transformation of a match.

Afterwards, a disgruntled Jersey player complained about the number of Guernsey Island players in the Cobo side, saying: ‘there shouldn’t be so many Guernsey players in just one team. They should parcel them out to other sides. Sporting Club were taking on the equivalent of a Guernsey 1st eleven. I’m not complaining about the make up of the team, because every player should have the choice of who he plays for. But I don’t think it’s right for the long term future of the sport if one club has all of its island’s leading players in one club alone.

‘The club should be giving their best players to other teams, further down the league.’ He’s probably right. In any club team there shouldn’t be too many ‘national’ players. Because if one club has what are considered to be the best players of that nation, however large or small it is, there is no incentive for the younger players to come through.

And, because cricket is very much a sport for the individual, playing in a team game, to top-load one team with the island’s very best is probably wrong. Talent should be shared around, to encourage other, raw talent, to make it better than it was, better than it is and to place it in other sides, rather than to include it in a side which – with nine Island players in it – should always win.