How quickly haev we regressed since the world cup? Some awful performances recently and yesterday’s effort was shocking.
Take Johnston out of the team and we might have been looking at a record defeat. He got a hat trick and finished with 4 for 13 from his 10 overs. With the bat he managed 22*, the only score bordering on respectable in a total of 63 all out.
Trent was talking on the radio and in the papers this morning about Ireland needing to go full-time professional now or just revert to the dark amateur uncompetitive days.
Yeah, we’ve lost our first 4 games of the competition very easily indeed and we’re obviously missing Rankin’s threat with the new ball, O’Brien’s batting and keeping and Morgan’s quality too even though he didn’t have a great CWC. Just don’t have the depth to compete with these teams while losing our best players. We have Nantie Hayward in from South Africa to open the bowling but he hasn’t fired so far and our 2nd overseas player is on the way - some batsman from the New Zealand A set up. I liked the idea of playing our cricket primarily in the winter when we’ll have all our best players available and that would involve long tours so they would have to be professional. It’s the only way to sustain the momentum that’s been built up because as you can see the media has moved on from cricket now and they’re probably of the opinion that Irish cricket’s had its 5 minutes of fame.
The media are just about retaining interest for the time being but if results continue like this it won’t last. Trent was on RT’s main sport bulletins this morning for example in an interview with Michael Corcoran - this would never have happened six months ago.
That NZ lad (Ryder?) played yesterday I think. He scored 1 run and bowled 2 overs for 13 before being replaced.
I heard TJ has got himself an agent now and is planning on doing the after dinner speaking circuit about how the minnows prospered in adversity etc.
Just to show the lack of depth we have at the moment. The bowler who’s next in line should any of the bhoys get an injury is Roger Whelan of Railway Union. He’s a young cricketer who’ll improve as he gets experience but to put it in context he went for 73 runs off 9 overs against Clontarf in the league the other day so a county team would crucify him.
Comfortably beaten by Essex in Clontarf today. That’s 5 defeats out of 5 since we got back from the CWC. The ICU Chief Executive said today they’re making moves to get all our players on semi professional contracts over the summer to allow cricket to progress here.
Ed Joyce was left out the England and Wales squad for the opening test of the summer against the West Indies which is starting next Thursday at Lord’s. Strauss is captain with Vaughan injured and the other batsmen are Cook, Bell, Pietersen, Collingwood, Flintoff and Owais Shah as back up. With Tresco on the way back and Vaughan to return at some stage too it looks like he’s fallen down the pecking order.
We lost to Notts today. They made 241-6 and we scored 240-6 from our 50 overs. We needed a 6 from the last ball and though Kev O’Brien got it to the ropes alright, the best he could manage was a 4. Fair play to him though - he hit 93 from 75 balls.
Again, it’s been frustrating enough so far this season as we look to build on the World Cup success and it’s the same problem as last year with the English counties having first call on our best players. Some haven’t played for us at all due to county requirements and any others who show a hint of form for Ireland are then called back to play with their counties.
We beat Warwickshire in Belfast last week and the new captain William Porterfield got a good 69 (wahey!). As a result, he was recalled by Gloucestershire and didn’t play today. Similarly, Surrey recalled Gary Wilson after he impressed behind the stumps.
I’m not sure how we’re going to progress if we’re playing strong county sides with half a first choice team or less. We need either to revert to playing mainly in the winter in the southern hemisphere when our best players will be available to tour or else get some benefactor who’ll pay players the wedge to play with us over the counties. I’m not sure that’s feasible though as most players want to test themselves at county level in the 4-day game.
Like we said before, the only way that looks like it could work is if Ireland have first call for players for 1-day games and then the counties for 4-day matches. In the same way, it would be beneficial if our players could play ODIs for us, while simultaneously playing test cricket for England and Wales. We can’t afford to lose Eoin Morgan like we did with Ed Joyce.
We’re playing Kenya in Nairobi in the Intercontinental Cup at the moment and declared on 578/4 with Kevin O’Brien smashing an unbeaten 171 and following up on his brother’s earlier century. It ties into the point I was making previously on this thread about us only being in a position to deliver on the success of the CWC in 2007 if we play/tour in the winter when we have players like Niall O’Brien available. Similarly, when we beat Namibia last week it was Boyd Rankin who was primarily responsible for skittling them out for 106 when they were only chasing 115 to beat us. His 5 wickets and new ball pace got us out of a hole but neither Niall O’Brien or Rankin were able to play a load of the games last summer due to commitmens with their county teams. Having pulled a sickie to watch us play Namibia with the bhoy in Clontarf in May 2006, I’m confident we can retain our title against them in the final next month if we dispose of Kenya over the next couple of days.
We retained the Intercontinental Cup after disposing of Kenya by an innings and then defeating Namibia in the final. It looked hairy enough at one stage when we were 37/5 in our first innings after they had already posted 250 odd. However, Alex Cusack played a defiant innings and got us up to 200. We bowled them out for 145 in the second innings and Niall O’Brien got a century to seal a comfortable 9 wicket win in the end.
Meanwhile, Ed Joyce has joined Sussex in a bid to rejuvinate his England ODI and England and Wales test match career.
I think he can play for Ireland again but that’s not definite. I’ll actually check with a few of my cricket chums. I believe there’s a period of ‘requalification’ after which he could resume with us if he doesn’t play for England or England and Wales during this time.
Ireland qualified for the 2011 CWC after defeating the Netherlands in their latest Super Six game at the qualifying tournament in South Africa today. We won all 5 group games before being shocked by Afghanistan in the first Super Six tie. One of the lads was telling me that the Afghans literally had players who were brought from refugee camps to play in the tournament. We recovered by beating United Arab Emirates prior to today’s win.
Again, we’ve played well because we’ve had all our main players from the counties - Porterfield, O’Brien, Morgan, Rankin, Wilson. There’s another concern in that Eoin Morgan has been named in the extended England squad for the 20/20 WC, which is taking place in England in early summer.
Hopefully, they’ll overlook him as we’ll be looking at another Ed Joyce scenario if not. I asked a couple of folks about Joyce and whether he was eligible to return to play for Ireland or if getting capped by England prevented him from doing so and got mixed answers - I’ll have to email the authorities about it!
[quote=“Bandage”]Ireland qualified for the 2011 CWC after defeating the Netherlands in their latest Super Six game at the qualifying tournament in South Africa today. We won all 5 group games before being shocked by Afghanistan in the first Super Six tie. One of the lads was telling me that the Afghans literally had players who were brought from refugee camps to play in the tournament. We recovered by beating United Arab Emirates prior to today’s win.
Again, we’ve played well because we’ve had all our main players from the counties - Porterfield, O’Brien, Morgan, Rankin, Wilson. There’s another concern in that Eoin Morgan has been named in the extended England squad for the 20/20 WC, which is taking place in England in early summer.
Hopefully, they’ll overlook him as we’ll be looking at another Ed Joyce scenario if not. I asked a couple of folks about Joyce and whether he was eligible to return to play for Ireland or if getting capped by England prevented him from doing so and got mixed answers - I’ll have to email the authorities about it![/quote]
According to some lad on the radio this evening the Afghans have moved from Div 5 to Div 1 of non test countries in 2 years
Going back over old ground here, but if the ICC wants to develop cricket in associate nations like Ireland then they’ll have to implement some kind of dual system whereby the likes of Joyce and Morgan remain playing ODIs and 20/20 for Ireland while playing test match cricket for England and Wales.
Or else just increase the number of full test nations
I wonder how long it would take Ireland to get some decent results if they were playing full test matches
Heard this one. Des Cahill continuously referred to them as “Afghanians”.
Cricket is thriving in Fingal in the Malahide Demense allegedly.
Perhaps the guy Des was interviewing was NCC - creeping away from SRFC to more civilised pastimes.
[quote=“Boxtyeater”]Heard this one. Des Cahill continuously referred to them as “Afghanians”.
Cricket is thriving in Fingal in the Malahide Demense allegedly.
Perhaps the guy Des was interviewing was NCC - creeping away from SRFC to more civilised pastimes.:o[/quote]
i thought the same myself, Fingal being the home and the heartbeat of Irish Cricket seemed to be yermans main point he wanted to get across.
[quote=“HBV*”]i thought the same myself, Fingal being the home and the heartbeat of Irish Cricket seemed to be yermans main point he wanted to get across.
