Ireland and Scotland to promote latest imports
Ireland and Scotland are familiar with griping about their best players leaving. Eoin Morgan, Ed Joyce and Boyd Rankin left Ireland for England, and there is no danger of Morgan returning across the Irish Sea anytime soon. Scotland also lost Dougie Brown and Gavin Hamilton in the late 1990s, which proved critical in their failure to qualify for the 2003 World Cup.
The two Celtic nations have always got players in return. Ireland’s class of the 2007 World Cup, the event that hurled Ireland into the consciousness of the cricketing world, comprised four players, including skipper Trent Johnston, who hailed from the southern hemisphere. The same today is true of Scotland captain Preston Mommsen.
So Ireland and Scotland have always been involved in cricketing exchanges with the rest of the world. But what’s new is the calibre of players who now want to represent the Celtic nations. For all the qualities he brought, Johnston came to Ireland after failing to make the grade for New South Wales. Essentially the Celtic nations appealed to has-beens and never-quite-weres from Test nations, but not to leading first-class players.
No longer. Tom Bruce is not a name that many cricket fans will know, but he has an outstanding pedigree in New Zealand domestic cricket, averaging 45.92 from 17 first-class games and thumping a 16-ball T20 fifty in January. He is a high-quality, three-format player – and he’s soon to be Scotland’s. As you might expect with a surname like Bruce, his father hails from north of the border. Now Bruce has decided to pursue a cricket career for Scotland, alongside playing for Central Districts in New Zealand domestic cricket. To prove his commitment, he has moved to Scotland for the summer. He marked his representative debut with 132 not out for a Scotland Development side against Durham Academy, and will be playing for the Western Warriors in domestic cricket.
They have already taken to calling Bruce the kilted kiwi. The paperwork with the ICC is well-advanced and Bruce is on course to make his debut by the summer’s end – perhaps in the ODIs against Afghanistan in July or, more likely, in the matches against the UAE in August. It is not only Scotland who are benefiting from players from foreign shores with family links. Before the start of the season, Sean Terry, the son of the former England opener Paul, left his deal with Hampshire, for whom he made five first-class half-centuries at an average just under 30, a year early to take up a contract for the YMCA club in Dublin, where his mother was born. He has already made his intention to play for Ireland clear, and this week played in an Ireland A match against the MCC. If his worth to Ireland is less obvious than Bruce’s to Scotland, Terry still has a realistic chance of being selected for Ireland too: with Andy Balbirnie injured, there is a vacancy in the middle order for the ODIs this summer.
It is easy to see why players like Bruce and Terry are so eager to pursue these moves. There is the allure of international cricket and, in the case of Terry, a healthy array of ODIs against Test opposition to look forward to. There is the possibility of playing in world events, especially with the WT20 set to revert back to being every two years. And Terry also sees in Irish cricket the possibility of his full-time career, being contracted to Cricket Ireland. Players of previous generations were not so lucky: only in 2009 did Ireland introduce professional contracts. So where once those who wanted to play for Ireland or Scotland had to either fit it in alongside their day jobs or balance their international cricket with their county commitments, now there is an alternative: to be employed as professionals by the national boards. As opportunities for associate cricketers grow, more high-calibre Antipodean cricketers with Irish links will be tempted to move to the Emerald Isle. That bodes well for how competitive the leading associate can be against full members.
It is easy, too, to see why nations are tempted. Nor is there anything wrong with it, unless it is at the expense of a commitment to develop youth cricket – a criticism that could be levelled at the Netherlands but not Ireland or Scotland. While nurturing grassroots cricket, it makes sense for them to use the odd player with Celtic links, knowing that successful sides are as a gateway to the sport. Ireland’s journey, which has seen participation levels quadruple since 2007 and the team beat five Test nations in the World Cup, would not have been possible without the contribution made by Johnston and co, and now the Irish team is almost entirely homegrown.
Indeed, rather than be too keen to select those from overseas with Irish links, perhaps Ireland have been too reticent, so keen are they to ensure a homegrown core in the side. They did not act decisively when the Australian batsman Nick Larkin played in Ireland in 2013 and 2014. This was surely a mistake: since his two matches for Ireland against Sri Lanka A, Larkin has scored a Sheffield Shield century for New South Wales, won the Australian Under-23 Player of the Season gong and played in the Big Bash. Ireland have held discussions with Surrey’s Matt Dunn, whose father was born in Ireland but he is not keen at this stage of his career.
Englishmen tempted to moralise, and lambast the Celtic nations for their interest in players who are not homegrown, might do well to listen to Ryan Campbell, the former Australian ODI wicketkeeper who played for Hong Kong in the World Twenty20: “Those who throw stones should just look at the English team,” he said. “They’ve got South Africans, they’ve got Irishmen, they’ve got Scotsmen, they’ve got whoever they want.”
Oman, famous for their mankads, have again showed contempt for the spirit of cricket. But while mankading is merely stopping batsman backing up by outrageous amounts, and in so doing gaining an advantage, their latest antics were a little less palatable.
Playing the hosts in World Cricket League Division Five in Jersey, Oman refused to let Jersey bring in a player after one was injured moments after the toss. So effectively Jersey were condemned to play with ten men. There was nothing illegal in what Oman did, but the Laws of the game should surely be tweaked to allow the umpires to sanction an injury replacement after the toss if someone is injured.
Either way, Munis Ansari provided a reminder of why he is one of the world’s most feared bowlers beyond the Test arena. Playing in India a decade ago, he dismissed Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff during an England tour match.
His dreamed-for career in India never came. Instead Ansari moved to Oman, working for a shipping company. There he honed his remarkable likeness to Lasith Malinga, evident when he took three wickets during the WT20 win over Ireland. Slinging the ball almost from out of the umpire’s pocket, Ansari’s bowling is laced with venom: of his five wickets against Jersey, four were with yorkers. It means that Oman, who announced themselves with their heist against Ireland, are now set for promotion in the one-day game too.
Tom Bruce is not a name that many fans will know, but he has an outstanding pedigree in New Zealand, averaging 45.92 from 17 first-class games and thumping a 16-ball fifty in January