Old Victorians, their opponents in tomorrow’s scheduled final at Grainville, have scratched because most of their first team are unavailable – the majority either on holiday or on a stag weekend.
This morning Jersey Cricket Board secretary Ron Halliwell confirmed that OVs have pulled out.
He said: ‘They asked for it to be rearranged because they couldn’t field a side but we had no dates available.’ And he confirmed that the JCB committee had decided to award the trophy to Sporting Club.
OVs secretary Simon Williams said: ‘It’s a bit embarrassing, but we didn’t expect to beat Caesareans in the semi-final last weekend.
‘We’ve got four on a stag weekend for Connor O’Brien, who used to play for us, six on holiday and two away on business.
We asked if the match could be re-arranged but the JCB said it couldn’t and so we’ve scratched.’ ‘We’ve only got a limited squad.
We could have turned out 11 players but eight of them would have been reserves and we wouldn’t have had a wicketkeeper.
‘Three years or so ago we played Sporting Club with a weak team and they murdered us – they got about 400 for one! We didn’t want that to happen again and decided there was just no point in playing with such a weakened side.
If we’d have had a couple more first teamers we’d probably have played.
‘But I didn’t make the decision on my own – it was taken after I’d talked to the senior players.
‘It was a shock when we beat Caesareans.
They had half the Island team but Meeku Patidar couldn’t bat for them after he split his hand when he dropped Chris Jones who went on to make 56 – everything went for us!’
