The 15-year-old, who featured in a fine 111-run opening partnership with Rohan Mohanty, finished undefeated on 98 after hitting a dozen boundaries and one five.
Mohanty played his part to the full before being the first wicket to fall after he had hit ten boundaries on his way to 60.The CI closed their 50 overs innings on 234 for 4 with Wales reaching their target for the loss of six wickets in 42.4 overs – Ben Wright top-scoring with an undefeated 84.The CI have two teams in the Festival, a CI under-17 team – who played Wales – and a Development XI that comprises a mixture of players between the ages of 14 and 18.The Development XI were beaten by 101 runs by Hampshire yesterday.
Peter Gough top-scored for the Channel Islanders with 26 while Hampshire’s 217 for 4 included 71 for N Hardacre and 52 for R Morris.CI U17 team manager Ben Silva said: ‘It was a great effort by the lads and had they not dropped a couple of catches we may well have won.
Their total of 234 was very good considering they batted in the drizzle and Sam was unfortunate not to have reached a century.’He was in the early 30s when Rohan was out and although he pushed the score along well towards the end, he ran out of overs just two short of the hundred.’Our bowling was wayward at the start and that contributed to us losing the game.
Wales got off to a flier, they had 50 runs on the scoreboard after just seven overs.’A couple of wickets got us back in the hunt again but it was not to be.
We fielded reasonably well and it would have been nice to have won as I don’t think we’ve ever beaten Wales before.’The first match is always tough adjusting to the level of the opposition and there’s no let up today as we play Yorkshire at Les Quennevais.’The CI defeated Yorkshire in their group game last year only for the County to bounce back to win the Festival.Yorkshire’s Andrew Rennison scored 127 in his team’s 117-run win against Suffolk yesterday while Middlesex beat Dorset by 92 runs.
Messrs Kangeratne and Amin scored half-centuries for the winners with Tom Turney top-scoring for Dorset on 48.Today’s games are, Yorkshire v CI U17s (LQ1); Wales v Suffolk (LQ2); Hampshire v Dorset (Grainville) and Middlesex v CI Development (FB).
