Cricket-Match-Special ... A forum for discussion

Obviously a few posts yesterday mused about the value of "crushing Ireland to dust" or words to that effect. While you don't want to see teams humiliated, I think in this case there is a solid argument that humiliation, especially at the hands of England, might actually be a good thing for Irish cricket. Ireland are never going to be competitive in the current reality - treating Irish players as overseas players in the county championship has robbed any real opportunity for their players to access meaningful coaching, standards of cricket, and pathway's suitable to prepare players and develop them for a step up. We cannot expect players to jump up from club standards to test cricket suddenly, and expect anything but lopsided batterings.

I would certainly argue that the higher the score, the more this problem would be highlighted, and the more there would be pressure to resolve it for the good of cricket. And, I would also suggest the ECB are far more likely to schedule test matches against Ireland in the future is they are likely to yield 4 days as opposed to 3.

The current folly in eligibility rules can be highlighted by that of Boyd Rankin's later years in the game.

He was born in Northern Ireland and has an automatic birth rite to consider himself a British Citizen if he was so inclined. He has freedom to move and work anywhere in the Britain.... and yet, bizarrely, despite having played cricket in England for god knows how many years, and even rpresenting the national team of England, in 2019 he was stripped of domestic player status and had to register as Derbyshire's overseas player? How the hell can a British citizen be blocked from working in Britain on the grounds he is a foreigner? That makes absolutely zero sense at all. It also feels like something that is very much out of the spirit of the GFA agreement, which constituionally protects the rights of NI born Citizens to identify as dual nationals without prejudice.... putting barriers on where someone can work as a domestic worker on the basis of enacting their rights from Irish citizenship, certainly to me feels absolutely inconsistent with this.

Of course, playing for both national teams being barred without some form of time transition is justified. But there are 4-5 Northern Irish players in this team at the moment who are essentially disbarred from working in their own country, and that is not right to me.

The ECB policy is purposefully more stringent than that set out by the ICC (ICC rules class a British citizen as eligible for England automatically, as long as they havent played for another international team - the ECB require birth in England, or residency), but this really should be changed. And English/British born players or citizens should never lose their right to be classed as domestic players, regardless of their dual nationality.

I remember some reports that the ECB didn't want to provide the resources through which Irish cricket would be competitive with England.

Ireland doing a fair job holding out.

Potts finally breaks the partnership....163 that was worth.

Maybe not a representative sample, but having watched Sussex flay Potts about early season, and now watching him bowl in this test, I have to conclude that he has a lot of work to do to improve his game if he wants to improve in the test game. Seems to really struggle with his rhythm into the crease at stages, and as a result the ball flies all over the place. Control of the seam has also been dreadful, while he is clearly bowling a lot of cross seam balls to get that lift off the deck, the seam comes out all over the place, and when he presents it vertical too, its scrambled all over the place. Not going to get the ball moving by releasing it like that. He has to do better.

When he gets it right, there is a real air of Chris Tremlett about him.... but he needs to get more consistent.

Probably clean up the tail now I have said that

Well new ball due in three overs, so someone probably will.

England were 361-1 in this game. How alien that would have seems a couple of years ago, when England were always 26-4 with Root trying to hold on.

At least the Ireland tail flailing the England attack brings back a lot of memories.

Ireland add 163 for the seventh wicket in 26 overs.

England need 11 to win

At least Ireland found a way to make England bat again, which is probably the most we could have asked of them.

Well done to Josh for a 5-fer on debut.

doubtless Crawley's four ball 12 will serve to confirm his match winning credentials at Key Towers

England's habit of failing miserably to bowl out the tail and dropping too short continues.

Well that was all fairly comprehensive , eh ? Ireland as they said themselves are more focused on WC qualification at present ; but I think they'll still be relieved to have put up a far better performance in their second innings - even if it didn't prevent England from winning with plenty of time and unused resources.

Some concerns expressed yesterday about Stokes being guilty of dudding the paying spectators proved to be unfounded thanks to the efforts of Tucker and Tector - and especially Adair and McBrine. Think the fans got plenty of action to enjoy on day three - and anyone booking tickets for day four here needed an award for optimism...

I do take the point Sussex raised about batting practice for the likes of Brook , Stokes and Bairstow. In a perfect world they would all have been given a chance for centre wicket stuff here ahead of the Ashes ; but considering the flat pitch , poor Irish bowling group further worn down already by the hammering they'd taken from Duckett , Pope & co ; and the total lack of game pressure , I'd question whether they'd really have gained much from it other than an opportunity to boost batting averages. Not ideal to be going into the Ashes Series with several bats arguably underprepared ; but given the schedule they have to work with - it is what it is.

Main Good Thing to come out of this game for England was the sight of Tongue maintaining good pace over sustained spells - and not looking at all out of place. He won't be first on the pecking order for the upcoming matches but I think he's staked a claim to make an appearance at some point in the close together five game series. Could be a useful addition to the roster.

A single zero-pressure hit against Ireland doesn't feel like it would have any impact on an Ashes series still a fortnight into the future. If England needed their batters to work up a little form, they haven't organised it very well.

Alfie/AC,

I think further defence of my point will give the impression that my views are much stronger than they are. I respectfully take note of your valid counter points, I just think in this instance that on the balance of things, I would personally see some positive value in geting time at the middle, however small that positive might be. And some benefits are less obvious than others; Pope for instance brought his career average from the low to mid 30s with that 200 - if times get hard in the Ashes, its harder to drop a player with a better average, and I think that must reduce pressure on him to perform. He can fall back on a few failures with a cushion, while a few failures without that would make his average start to look horrendous.

But on the other side, I also have to confess that I look at Tongue's contribution second innings with some skeptism, based on the circumstances. Late on day 2, while he did enough to put the ball into areas that Ireland's rather poor batters could make errors from, I don't think any of the balls he served up will dismiss an Aussie, and really it was a lot of rather lame areas England targeted without building pressure, Ireland got out to isolated mistakes. Tector being the finest example, because it was a wide buffet ball he tapped to backwards cover in the air. Of course, its worth noting the pitch looked very good for batting at that stage, and there was no lateral movement in the air or off the seam; I'd imagine with even a hint of swing, most of these irish techniques would flop. Either way, 5 for 50 odd felt generous for the quality of bowling on offer.