Luke Gallichan was man of the match as Jersey made a winning start to World Cricket League 6 with a six wickets victory over Kuwait at Grainville.
After dismissing Kuwait for 179 in less than 40 overs, the WCL hosts survived a nervous start, when captain Peter Gough and leading batsman Ben Stevens were dismissed to successive balls in the third over to ease to victory with more than eight overs to spare.
First, Corey Bisson put on 97 for the third wicket with Gallichan and Andy Dewhurst impressively finished the job with 33 not out from just 35 balls in an undefeated stand of 66. With Ed Farley also failing with the bat - he lasted three balls longer than Stevens - there is plenty of batting talent waiting in the wings for the week ahead and certainly enough depth for Jersey to go one better than their disappointing experience in the European T20 qualifiers in Sussex earlier this month.
A place at WCL 5 in Malaysia early next year is the prize for the top two teams in this tournament but there are likely to be tougher challenges ahead and Jersey know they will not get away with such loose bowling, possibly starting in the second game against Bahrain at Les Quennevais on Monday.
Kuwait took full advantage in a fast start to the innings which even early wickets for Anthony Hawkins-Kay and Cornelis Bodenstein could not halt, Muhammad Khan and Muhammad Kashif putting on 69 in just 10 overs for the third wicket.
It didn't help Jersey's cause that Hawkins-Kay was able to bowl only one over before having to retire with a shoulder injury but he was padded up and ready to bat if required at the other end of the day, so that was a good sign that he will be fit for the game against Bahrain.
Jersey suffered a double injury blow when Hawkins-Kay's substitute, Ben Kynman also had to be substituted but there was no news of any call-ups to the squad.
It was Tom Minty, Jersey's seventh bowler, who broke the third wicket stand, with Farley taking the second of his four catches in the innings and the Kuwait middle-lower order never threatened to maintain the momentum as the home bowlers finally got on top.
Charles Perchard, whose first over disappeared for 16, came back at the pavilion end and within seven balls had figures of two for 19. Bodenstein, who bowled six of the 16 wides - which altogether gifted Kuwait 25 runs - also enjoyed himself at the end and picked up the last two wickets to end the innings 45 minutes before the scheduled lunch break.
Their ‘penalty' for dismissing the opposition early was having to face seven overs before the interval and it was too long for Gough, caught at slip and Stevens, much to his disbelief, given out leg before, apparently via the inside edge.
But there were no further alarms and either side of the interval, Bisson and Gallichan accumulated steadily at four runs an over. The stand ended with Bisson mistiming one to mid-off and when Farley was plumb in front in the next over from the pavilion end, there could have been a panic in the Jersey camp.
But the singles continued to be nudged and stroked and Gallichan was the immovable object, bringing up his half century from 80 balls with six fours. He added only one more in his remaining 34 balls but, then, he didn't have to score any more. Victory was always in the bag and in the end that's all that mattered. Four more will do nicely.