KEVIN O’BRIEN
IRISH CRICKET’S BIGGEST STAR ON THE WORLD CUP
TIMES have changed. The celebrations last Monday in Nelson were a tad more subdued than after our other famous World Cup victories. It certainly wasn’t anything like St Patrick’s night 2007 in Jamaica, that’s for sure. We had a few beers in our changingroom after the game and a couple more when we got back to the hotel. But that was it. We were all in our beds relatively early. It was great to get off to a good start but it was only the first game and we believe that this is going to be a long tournament for us. Nobody got carried away.
It comes from what we now expect of ourselves, I suppose. There was no point last Monday when I believed that the West Indies would beat us – not even in their final 10 overs, when they scored a fair few runs.
William Porterfield got a little needled when the win was described as an upset but ‘Purdy’ was talking for the whole squad. Irish cricket has come a long way since 2007 and even 2011. And we have come a long way as players. Those who felt last Monday was an upset have been sleeping for eight years.
Of course, there have been plenty that have been paying attention.
It’s nice to hear figures such as Michael Holding, who commands such respect within our sport, come out and say that the International Cricket Council have to grant us immediate Test status.
Others, like former England captain Michael Atherton, have led the clamour for us to get more one-day international games.
To have respected cricketing figures on our side is great. However, it is not something that we, as players, have any control over, so it is not something we are concerning ourselves with. We can’t get caught up in the debate.
The only reason we are over here is to win cricket matches – if we get sidetracked into a debate about how the ICC have treated us or other Associate nations, we will take our eye off the ball ahead of the United Arab Emirates game.
IT DOESN’T matter if the ICC eventually gives Ireland Test status in two months’ time, two years’ time or whether it happens in four years’ time. That’s irrelevant to us as players at this present moment. We are here to go as far as we can in this World Cup.
am not saying we are completely switched off from the bigger picture, but it has to be in the background. Yes, it would be nice to play 15 or 20 ODIs a year against the top eight sides in the world. As a side, given our results in the past eight years, I believe we have earned the right to have more matches against the top nations. But as players, the only way we are going to affect it is by getting to the quarter-finals of this World Cup – and maybe beyond.
That is the only means we have to keep the pressure on the ICC when it comes to this issue.
If we were to lose to UAE on Wednesday, all the good work from Nelson will come undone and it would weaken our argument again. So we can’t afford to slip-up here.
The whole scheduling of this World Cup has been unusual. This will be UAE’s third game on Wednesday and only our second – and yet our tournament began before theirs.
But it’s something we have planned for. We had a few days off after the win over the West Indies and after flying back to Australia from Auckland, we went to the Gold Coast for a couple of days.
It was simply an opportunity to chill out, unwind after the Windies game. A few of the lads played golf. We had hoped to get into the sea but Cyclone Marcia was coming in off Australia’s East Coast so we weren’t allowed into the water.
But it was great to give our bodies and minds a chance to rest, after the match in Nelson.
WE WENT back to work yesterday and Phil Simmons emphasised that the West Indies game was in the past. We had to forget about it because everyone else will if we lose to the UAE on Wednesday. It’s a game everyone expects us to win and we expect to win ourselves. But the UAE have improved an awful lot in the past 18 months. They have made great strides under their coach Aaqib Javed and will want to win at least one game in this World Cup. And they will be targeting this game.
But if we stick to how we played against the West Indies, we feel we should have enough to win.
Our fielding performance was particularly pleasing in Nelson.
We have always considered ourselves to be among the best fielding sides in world cricket but in the past four or five months, the standards in our fielding had slipped a bit.
It was something we worked on a lot in the few weeks leading up to the tournament, we paid particular attention to a few different aspects of our fielding. And you saw the result of it there on Monday.
So if we can keep that up, we will go deep in this World Cup. And that will be our contribution to the debate over whether Ireland should get Test status – maybe it will be the most telling contribution.
If we were to lose to UAE it would weaken our argument yet again