By David Stephens

Ireland’s cricketers burst onto the world’s stage and captured the attention of cricket fans everywhere during the 2007 World Cup in the West Indies. During their maiden appearance in the tournament, the Irish drew against a capable Zimbabwe, shocked the cricketing world by eliminating the potent Pakistanis and inflicted an embarrassing defeat on a Bangladeshi team riding high after ending the dreams of another sub continental powerhouse, India.

Andre Botha	Niall O’Brien Pix by Sanka Vidanagama

Nearly three years on from their memorable World Cup campaign, Ireland now finds itself on Sri Lankan soil. Competing against them in a series of warm up and ranking rendering T20 matches are Sri Lanka ‘A’, Canada and Afghanistan.

So far losses to Afghanistan in the Intercontinental Cup and Sri Lanka ‘A’ in a T20 warm up match have blemished Ireland’s tour. The Irish did manage to exact revenge for their loss in the Intercontinental Cup by securing a 5 wicket win over Afghanistan in a recent T20 quadrangular clash. However tangible results in terms of wins and losses are not solely the purpose of such tours. The string of matches they played would have dispelled any rustiness they may have acquired from a four month period devoid of any cricketing action and help them get familiar with conditions in Sri Lanka.

Since the successes in the World Cup the only significant victory for Ireland in international competition has come against Bangladesh in last year’s T20 World Cup. Ireland however can console itself with the fact that it has a spring of talent in its ranks, coached by former West Indian great, Phil Simmons.
The all rounder who played amidst a plethora of former legends from Sir Vivian Richards and Brian Lara to Ian Bishop and Courtney Walsh has been with the Irish national team since the conclusion of the World Cup.

Ireland team at practices

When asked about the individuals in the team who have impressed him throughout his time coaching the team, Simmons explains that it is not about individual performances but an all round team performance that matters.

Be that as it may, the fact that Ireland has a number of gifted players is an undeniable one. Their talent was clearly visible during this tour of Sri Lanka. William Porterfield, Gary Wilson, Niall O’Brien, John Mooney and Trent Johnson all scored innings in excess of 50 in the four day match against Afghanistan at Dambulla. The left handed Porterfield also blazed 46 runs off just 30 balls in an innings that included 9 boundaries during the T20 match against the Afghans.

Irish Coach Phil Simmons

Experienced right armed medium paced Trent Johnson bamboozled the Afghans during this T20 encounter, bagging 4 wickets for just 22 runs. He also had more than adequate support from Andre Botha and slow left armer George Dockrell, both of whom gathered figures of 3 for 14 and 2 for 11 respectively.
“All the players in the team today came up through the local leagues back in Ireland,” Coach Simmons replied when asked about the effectiveness of the domestic structure back in Ireland.

The three main leagues in the country are Leinster, NCU and the North West League. Each league has a number of divisions including several for school players and this effectively helps groom players for the upper divisions and eventually the national team.

Nevertheless once in the National team several of these players have managed to secure contracts with leading English county clubs. William Porterfield represents Gloucestershire, Gary Wilson plays for Surrey, Kevin O’Brien for Nottinghamshire and Andrew White and Niall O’Brien both play for Northamptonshire.

Following the immediate conclusion of their Sri Lankan tour, the boys from Ireland will next head to Dubai for the T20 World Cup qualifiers. In their Group A matches they will face Afghanistan, U.S.A and Scotland.

One thing is for certain if Ireland does qualify, which they are most likely to do and have already done for next year’s World Cup, then no team in the competition can feel completely safe from the skill, rather than the luck, of these resilient Irishmen.