Jersey announces domestic cricket return date

The Jersey Cricket Board’s (JCB) return to cricket plan has been accepted by the Jersey government after the country moved into stage two of restrictions throughout the week.

In a media release by Jersey Cricket on Thursday afternoon the board announced that the government’s acceptance of the return to cricket plan means cricket can begin as soon as possible.

Stage two of the countries lockdown plan stipulates that 40 people can congregate at a venue at any one time with the JCB’s biosecurity plan confirming that this will be the case for Jersey cricketing venues from this Friday.

The return to cricket plan looks to use the weekend of 20 June 2020 to hold educational trial games to educate players about the steps going forward coming out of the restrictions with an eye to returning domestic leagues on the 4th of July 2020.

Jersey Cricket CEO Craig Merideth re-iterated that Jersey Cricket will continue to react to any announcements made by the Jersey government going forward.

“We have been working extremely hard behind the scenes with our stakeholders, facility providers and Government to allow this safe return to happen, our priority is, and always will be, people’s health and wellbeing.”

“We will continue to liaise closely with Jersey Sport and react swiftly to any material changes made by the Government of Jersey as soon as they happen,” Merideth said.

Jersey have not played a competitive match since December 2019 when the island nation finished fourth in the Cricket World Cup Challenge League.

The competition capped off a memorable 2019 for the country which saw Jersey win the European contingent of the 2019 T20 Cricket World Cup qualifiers and feature in the main qualification tournament in the United Arab Emirates recording victories against the UAE, Oman and Nigeria in finishing fourth in their group.