Cherish Ireland’s part in helping rescue summer
Perhaps with the exception of Liverpool fans, if 2020 is going to be remembered in Britain for any sport, it will be the international cricket, which, between Southampton and Manchester, has sustained and entertained us from July until September.
Coming from a racing correspondent, that is in no way meant to denigrate the sport of kings, but if racing has lacked one thing this year it has been a lower tier to give its best horses, such as Enable, Ghaiyyath, Love and Battaash, serious competition to their odds-on processions.
There was a slightly poignant moment on Sky at the end of the final one-day international of the season on Wednesday night, as the home team respectfully “fistbumped” the series victors, Australia, when David “Bumble” Lloyd paid heartfelt appreciation, I felt on behalf of us all, to the teams who have gone beyond the call of duty to make this truncated summer so memorable.
“Thanks, as we said before, to the West Indies, Pakistan and Australia for visiting,” he said, before Mike Atherton prompted him: “And Ireland.” “And Ireland, too,” Bumble continued, recovering from his play and miss before, by way of compensation, giving them geographical context, “from across the water.”
I am not sure why Ireland’s has become the forgotten series of the summer. Maybe it is because as a cricketing country they are still not taken particularly seriously (though they have won a T20 away to West Indies and lost an ODI against them only on the penultimate ball this year).
Maybe, just as a 0-0 football friendly against Brazil is likely in our own minds to be more memorable than a 7-0 thrashing of Moldova, games against old rivals Australia or West Indies are always going to carry more clout.
Maybe it is because Ireland are not regarded as a regular Testplaying side, a mistake England made last year in a one-off Test, when they were bowled out in the first innings for 85. Maybe we just have short memories.
But in their final ODI against England at the Ageas Bowl, Paul Stirling (142 – the highest ODI score of the summer) and captain Andrew Balbirnie (113) chased down England’s 328 to win by seven wickets in the last over.
Had the Spanish Armada ever managed to pepper the English
fleet in the Solent with cannonballs as Ireland’s No 1 and No 3 batsmen peppered that strait with cricket balls, this might be a column about bull fighting. It must surely be on the shortlist of games of the summer.
Ireland may not be much further away than “across the water” but getting here was not without its problems; for starters, because, like rugby, the side are made up of players from the Republic and Northern Ireland, and as each country had different Covid rules, they were unable to train together.
In 1972, the Scotland and Wales rugby teams refused to play Ireland in Dublin in the Five Nations because it was at the height of the Troubles. But in
February 1973, John Pullin, the outstanding hooker and the first captain of England to beat New Zealand, Australia and South Africa, took his England team to Dublin. When England jogged on to the pitch at Lansdowne Road, it struck a chord with the Irish crowd and they were given a five-minute standing ovation. England lost the game 18-9 but at the post-match dinner in his captain’s speech, Pullin said modestly: “We might not be the best team in the world – but at least we turn up.”
The reasons may be very different but there are echoes of those words with the Ireland cricket team; they may not be the best in the world but, in a difficult summer, at least they turned up.