CAMPHER COMMITS TO GREEN PARTY

You can guess the social media barbs coming if young Curtis Campher morphs into a superstar for Ireland.

Playing and excelling for the Emerald Isle before so much as playing a game in his adopted cricketing home, sniffy comments will follow that he’s nothing but a passport mercenary, shipped into a country that can’t compete without imports and offcuts. Despite the fact that it is England who have been the biggest beneficiary of player movement – not least from South Africa – it remains developing nations that seem to wear this sledge most often.

The Campher story is complicated by Coronavirus – isn’t everything? Originally, after declaring allegiance to Ireland last year, the plan was for the 21-year-old – who the last time he was in England was representing South Africa’s U19 team two summers ago – to shift over in April to play a full season of inter-provincial cricket. Already having turned out for the Irish development squad in Namibia during the winter, the next steps were clear. But then he was stranded in South Africa, unable to travel as a result of lockdown restrictions.

When Campher was permitted to fly in June, he was taken straight into the senior training squad in Dublin and looked the part. He has a habit of making a good impression, as he did on his debut at Southampton on Thursday, compiling an unbeaten 59 – after walking in at 28 for 5 – and then 68 in the second game on Saturday.

This was also the case in 2018, when Ireland were in South Africa preparing for the World Cup qualification tournament, when he made runs and took wickets in front of national coach Graham Ford – another South African – who learned the young man’s grandmother was Irish.