BREAK WINDIES
Ireland must win today in Nelson to make a big noise at the World Cup
IT’S getting real now. All the shadow-boxing is over. When we landed in Auckland Airport on Friday morning, it hit home that the World Cup was about to kick off. It bombards the senses everywhere here and the Kiwi public are really pumped up for it.
The mood in our squad is pretty good, too. To be honest, it wasn’t so good during the week. Everyone was fairly despondent after Scotland thumped us. We let ourselves and the jersey down. We were flat and made too many errors.
But we didn’t press the panic button. We had a good meeting the day after the game, identified a few things we needed to address – fielding in particular – and we responded very well against Bangladesh.
The game against Scotland wasn’t a total train smash. We knew that we had prepared in excellent fashion and how we performed wasn’t a reflection of what this team can do. And maybe it’s good to get that bad performance out of our system before the tournament begins.
The most pleasing aspect of the Bangladesh game was the batting display of Andy Balbirine, whom we call Balboa. He’s always had a huge amount of potential. He’s a clean ball striker and has a very relaxed head on his shoulders. Balboa is definitely a player to watch out for against the West Indies tonight.
It’s funny how a win can completely change the mood of the camp. There’s real confidence coursing through the team now. We had targeted this match against West Indies for months. We know that we could be in a battle with them for fourth spot in the group.
It’s well flagged that West Indies are in turmoil at the moment. They still have some talented guys like Chris Gayle, Dwayne Smith and Denesh Ramdin but it beggars belief that they went to the World Cup without Kieron Pollard and Dwayne Bravo, their two most destructive one-day players. I got to know Bravo well when I played in the Caribbean Premier League and was looking forward to catching up with him.
Jason Holder is still trying to find his feet as captain, too. So there’s a lot of uncertainty surrounding the Windies at present and maybe their minds will be elsewhere. It’s something we have to capitalise on.
We firmly believe that we can make a big impact on this tournament. We have some great memories from the past two World Cups, beating Pakistan in 2007 and England four years ago. But we feel we can do more than just one-off victories this time and are determined to go deep in the tournament.
For the past six months, I have had to talk a lot about my century against England. It’s great that it is still remembered and considered a defining moment in Irish sport but I have never watched it back over the past three years. It is in the past and I just want to look forward.
To be honest, I expect my fastest century at a World Cup record to fall at some point in this tournament. There have been four centuries off fewer balls in the past 18 months: South Africa’s AB De Villiers made one off 31 balls a couple of months ago. With the new rules, the record will be broken. Maybe one of my Ireland teammates can do it!
I feel a more complete player than I was at the past two World Cups. I I’ve become a leader on the bowling front as well as batting.
At my first World Cup in 2007 I didn’t bowl as much because Ireland had so many brilliant bowlers – Trent Johnston, Andre Botha, David Langford-Smith, Boyd Rankin and Kyle McCallan – that was a fantastic bowling line-up.
Over the past four years my bowling has come on leaps and bounds and I’m really enjoying the challenges with the ball.
It’s a long day in the field when you are not bowling. Over three hours running around in the field can get a bit boring.
But there are leaders in every area of our squad and that’s encouraging for the six players who are in their first World Cup. The maturity of our team can be gauged by the number of our players who captain their club side. William Porterfield is captain of our team and has captained Warwickshire in the past. Ed Joyce captains Sussex, ditto Gary Wilson at Surrey, John Mooney is captain of Leinster Lightning while both myself and Niall have captained our clubs. It shows the amount of leaders within our ranks. We can all help Porterfield out, if he needs it. Not that he will.
But it’s a real mark of where Irish cricket stands, that so many Irish players are captaining their counties and we even have an Irishman (Eoin Morgan) captaining England. That’s only a good sign.
While West Indies appear in disarray, this is the best prepared Ireland have ever been for a World Cup. Hopefully that will be reflected on the field in Nelson tonight.