Ireland vs Australia, Dublin: Finally a chance for Ireland to play against a top side

Ireland will get to play one of the strongest sides in the world for a change as they take on Ricky Ponting‘s Australia in an ODI at Dublin, as a prelude to Australia’s tour of England where they play play both England and Pakistan in these two months.

Ireland will miss all-rounder Andre Botha who is down with a back trouble. Wicket keeper Niall O’ Brein though is fit to play after a finger injury.

Ricky Ponting while speaking to reporters said it is imperative ICC starts looking into how to preserve talent-pool in Ireland. Good cricketing talents are taken over by English county sides and in some time some of them even go on to represent England in international matches, severing ties with their native land. Eoin Morgan and Ed Joice were two supremely talented Irish batsmen who went on to play for England. While Ed Joice is no longer in the scene, Eoin Morgan is a crucial member of the English team who played a good hand in England’s win in the Twenty20 World Cup in West Indies this year.

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It is feared that their tall fast bowler Boyd Rankin, who currently plays for Warwickshire, could also follow their footsteps.

“If the ICC look at that and are serious about Ireland continuing to grow as a nation and maybe one day being a Test-playing nation then they can’t afford to have their better players going off at a young age, ” Ponting reportedly said as stated in BBC.

“The counties are jumping on 17 and 18 year old kids who have maybe had a good tournament or a few good games here or there.

“They offer them some decent money and away they go.”

Ireland, though, have taken giant strides to become one of forces to reckon with in recent times. The 2007 World Cup in the West Indies where they knocked out Pakistan from the premiere event was a watershed in the history of Irish cricket, and craze for cricket reached unprecedented levels in the country. For some time last year they were even above Zimbabwe in the ODI rankings, and they continued to play competitively in all the ICC events thereafter, including the T20 World Cup this year in which they had put England in a spot of bother. Duckworth-Lewis came to England’s rescue, else it was all over for the eventual champions in the first round itself.

Most of the Irish national players are in normal lives employed in schools and companies however, and find it difficult to balance their profession and cricket, for at the moment cricket cannot be a full-fledged profession because of lack of money and infrastructure.

“The principle of the school both Kyle (Mccallan)and I are involved in has been extremely good in allowing us the time,” Irish player Andrew White had once said. “But there’s only a limit to that and how much time we can have. Kyle had to take a sabbatical for six months and if you kept asking for that they wouldn’t be too chuffed.”

“You are practising with your club two nights a week then you have a club game on Saturday if there’s no game for Ireland and besides that you are trying to get into the gym when possible. People like Kyle (Mccallan) are leaving the house at half seven and he’s not home until six, then he’s got family time to consider as well. It’s an impossible task trying to balance your day job and the cricket at this level.”

The Irish Cricket Union, however, is looking into it and things can only be better for them from here.

Today’s match against Australia is only their once-in-a-blue-moon opportunity to compete against top cricketing sides. Ireland are knocking on the doors of the ICC to give them the full-member status that will transform their cricketing infrastructure and fortunes. With regards to their past performances, if Bangladesh is one, then Ireland too deserve to be one.