MacRae impressed with Jersey improvement in 2023 – BBC Sport

Jersey head coach Neil MacRae says the islanders have improved over 2023 as their season came to an end at the European Cricket Championships.

Jersey also reached qualifying tournaments for the 50-over and T20 World Cups, but did not progress.

“We’re certainly a better side than we were 12 months ago, and we’re hungry to keep improving,” MacRae told BBC Sport.

“Opportunities like these two weeks at the European Cricket Championships are great development opportunities along that path.

“Ultimately this season we’re frustrated with the results because there was an opportunity in 50-over cricket in Namibia at the start of the year, and there was an opportunity in the T20 qualifiers in July to go to a World Cup.

“That’s a big goal for us and we haven’t achieved that this year, so we are frustrated by that, but we also recognise that it’s still a young squad, we’re working extremely hard to move forward and improve and we are certainly going in the right direction.”

Having finished fifth in the six-team 2023 Cricket World Cup Qualifier Play-off in April, Jersey went on to finish fourth out of seven sides in the European Qualifier for the 2024 T20 World Cup in Scotland.

They also entered the 10-over European Cricket Championships for the first time, using it as a chance to give teenagers such as Jack Kemp, Sam Patidar and Theo Pullman their first taste of the senior side.

“It’s been a new format and that’s brought significant challenges which I think the players have been outstanding in taking on day by day, particularly in Championship week against some teams that have been playing this for up to three years and brought strong sides,” MacRae said.

“We’ve been thoroughly tested, but ultimately the players have shown pride in playing for Jersey and courage in taking on the challenge day by day and also along with producing some good performances, which improved significantly across the weeks.

“I thought, in our first ECC tournament, to win every game in Group B to qualify – including a game against a strong Belgium side in the final of that tournament – was an outstanding first week.

“There’s certainly plenty of positives from a young squad in Championship week and areas of learning and improvement that we can take into our T20 and 50-over cricket next season.”

The tournament in Spain, which was played on a synthetic wicket and saw short boundaries, made for some impressive hitting and scores, and also put pressure on players to perform from the outset with bat and ball.

“The batters have been forced to start their innings more quickly because of the reduced number of balls in T10, and the bowlers have been put under extreme pressure because of the boundary size.

“For death bowling or powerplay bowling in T20 cricket, and even 50-over cricket, there’s been huge learning there.

“There’s certainly some good signs coming out of this week that we can progress well into T20 with this new learning next season.”