Jersey cricket: Team playing at highest level ever says Zak Tribe

Tribe, 25, was named best batter at the final round of Challenge League A matches while team-mate Josh Lawrenson was named best player.

Tribe hit his highest-ever international score of 150 in Jersey’s win over Papua New Guinea while he also made 65 against hosts Kenya and 53 against Qatar, as well as taking nine wickets over the five matches.

As well as Challenge League A rivals Kuwait and hosts Nepal, Jersey will face Italy, Canada, Uganda, Namibia and the United Arab Emirates next month.

Jersey hosted the UAE and Nepal in July in preparation matches, being defeated in all four of their games.

“I’d like to think that we could progress, but it is going to be a challenge,” Tribe added.

“The sides coming up – Italy, Uganda – they’re both strong. Kuwait obviously beat us in this last round so we know that we’ve got to be on it against them too.

“Then the four sides that we’re joining in that group, Namibia, Nepal, Canada and UAE, they’re sides that have been playing ODI cricket all year round for the last three years and years prior to that as well.

“So they are going to be very strong sides and we know that we’re going to have to play well when we come up against them.

“But with the experience we’ve had of playing Nepal and UAE earlier on in the year, we’re able to take things from those games to learn how we can better play these games with matchups and what it’s like to play at that level as well, the intensity of it.

“I think we can do well, we can definitely turn over a few of those sides and ultimately we’ll be trying to finish in that top half of the table.”