HOPEFULLY news that Jersey have got their World Cup Division 4 campaign off to a winning start will be filtering its way back to the Island later on tomorrow, after their opening match against Tanzania.

We could certainly do with some good news as most of it is really quite depressing at the moment, with the credit crunch, financial turmoil, stabbings and global warming all occupying our minds.

Do you ever get the impression though that some reporting paints a far bleaker picture of things than they actually are? On GMTV they recently implied that a man was forced to pay his hotel bill under armed guard, portraying images of the man with a gun at his head, when in fact he said, when interviewed, that there were merely armed guards in the vicinity. And Penny Smith announced that something like 1 in 20 men couldn’t boil an egg. Why not say 95% of men can boil an egg?

Does anyone else think that they give men an unnecessarily hard time on that programme? I suppose men are badly outnumbered as there is a female co presenter, female news readers, weather girls and Richard Arnold, with only a male co presenter to balance things out a bit. It’s time that men started standing up for themselves. I’ve had enough, I tell you, of seeing things like football ridiculed, and I’ve got a good mind to start watching the other channel … if only my wife would let me.

So in the table on this page I have played around with some of the headlines from the cricket season, one reflecting a truthful account of events, the other a slightly more biased view.

So Jersey face the home nation, Tanzania, tomorrow and, although all matches are important, they will be keen to get off to a winning start, as that could set the tone for the week. By this time next week they will have played Tanzania, Afghanistan, Italy and Hong Kong and will be a few hours into their match against Fiji, so it’s a pretty hectic schedule.

It was interesting to read the views of the Fiji coach last week in the JEP. He certainly thought his team were in with a shout of winning the tournament, despite the fact that their star player, Neil Maxwell, is injured, and identified Hong Kong as the team to beat. I wonder if he still feels the same after Fiji’s warm up game against Jersey earlier in the week, when, on a difficult wicket they bowled Jersey out for 135.

Jersey then bowled the Fijians out for 58, recording a 77-run victory. A spokesman for Hong Kong also failed to acknowledge the strength of the Jersey side, identifying Afghanistan and Italy as the major threats to his team reaching the final. This will suit Jersey who I’m sure will be happy to let their on field activities do the talking.
No doubt Jersey’s coach, Peter Kirsten, will have spoken to his brother Gary, coach of India, who played and comfortably beat Hong Kong earlier in the year, when Hong Kong qualified for the Asia Cup by beating Afghanistan in the semi final of the ACC Trophy. In the context of this tournament, that form is pretty good, none of these teams would be able to get close to India, and the fact that they then made Pakistan work pretty hard for victory, at one point having them 161 for 7, means they are rightly tournament favourites.

Form lines are difficult to evaluate, but Hong Kong finished fifth in the WC Division III tournament in Darwin in 2007, where they started slowly and were beaten in their first three matches by Uganda, Cayman Islands and Tanzania before winning their last two against Italy and Tanzania.

Tanzania beat Botswana by eight wickets in 2006, a team Jersey beat by seven wickets in 2008, and Jersey have also beaten Italy. There are other dubious lines of form involving Nepal, but we will be much wiser after tomorrow’s other matches, Hong Kong against Italy and Afghanistan against Fiji. It’s all very exciting, isn’t it?

Whilst scrolling through Café Cyril, the States Intranet site (during my lunch break), I happened upon a whole set of cricket gear for sale. The name of the vendor was none less than Micky Higgitt and I had an awful feeling this could mean his impending retirement from the game. Maybe having taken three wickets in the final game of the season, against the Buckingham Cavaliers, he felt he would go out on a high. During that match he also performed a piece of fielding that epitomised his commitment to the team, performing a full length sliding dive in an attempt to stop the ball, happy to get any part of his body in the way.

He did, indeed, get a part of his body in the way, but may have wished he hadn’t as it struck the part of his anatomy that, had he been batting, would have been well protected. It took some time before he was able to bowl due to the tears in his eyes. There will be plenty of you out there who will remember playing alongside Higgy, for it is a never to be forgotten experience.

This year he played a few games for Caesareans 2nd XI, who will have learnt a lot from the veteran of 32 consecutive years of league cricket; maybe not so much about cricket but valuable life skills, such as how to make a packet of ten fags last a week, and whose lives will be considerably richer for the experience.

‘The man is a legend,’ said Ian Crocker whose formative cricketing years were spent playing alongside Mickey.
After speaking to Mickey, I can confirm that he is indeed contemplating hanging up his boots, which unfortunately, for Dave Gorman, are not amongst the items of his kit for sale. The fact that he hasn’t had any offers for his kit yet, despite his “nothing ropey” assurance, and that there is already a hint of doubt in his voice, means however, that come next spring, with an Ashes series on the horizon, he is likely to find it impossible not to say, ‘well I suppose one more season won’t hurt,’ when popped the inevitable question, ‘Mickey, can you play for the JICC on Tuesday?’

• Here are some of the headlines from the cricket season, one reflecting a truthful account of events, the other a slightly more biased view …

Gomersall rips through Argyll middle order claiming 4 for 0
Argyll teenagers throw wickets away

Jersey qualify for Division 4 tournament in Tanzania
Jersey fail to win Division 5 tournament

Driver scores 109 on opening day of the season
Driver fails by 91 to record a double hundred on opening day

Dave Gorman 80 helps Cs to first win of the season
Dave Gorman bats in golf shoes

Morrison takes OV’s attack apart scoring 143
Browny subdues Morrison as OV’s beat St Ouen

Full squad means skipper Gough must chose between Jenner or Brown
Axed Jenner attacks selection policy

Romerils claim back-to-back titles
Cat missing in St Mary’s