Ireland Can Take A Lead From New Zealand

Ireland Can Take A Lead From New Zealand

- Isabelle Westbury

It hasn’t been a bad fortnight to be Irish. Results at the Cheltenham Festival were dominated by Irish trained horses while last Saturday, St Patrick’s Day, Ireland’s rugby team crushed England at Twickenham to win only their third Grand Slam.

However Ireland’s cricket team are only just hanging in there in the World Cup Qualifiers, unable yet to clinch one of the two final spots for next year’s tournament in England.

It would be a cruel blow to a burgeoning cricket nation that in almost the same breath that the administrators expanded the number of Test playing nations to 12 by promoting Ireland and Afghanistan they reduced the World Cup in size and at least one of those two teams won’t be featuring in the next World Cup.

Ireland men’s Test history will begin in two months, when they take on Pakistan in May. Last week was Test cricket’s 141st birthday. Ireland now have their own party invitation but history tells us that they should not expect an easy ride.

As England start their Test series in New Zealand, now a daunting prospect for any visiting nation, it is easy to forget that it took the Black Caps 26 years to register their first Test win. India, now cricket’s foremost superpower, had to wait 19 years.

The good news for Ireland is that the trend since is positive: Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, more recent Test arrivals, have taken (comparatively) a far shorter time to get their first wins. Ireland also have an added advantage – longevity. Cricket in Ireland, as in most other major cricket-playing nations, was introduced by the British. Yet the proximity of Ireland to mainland Britain meant it became one of the first nations to have a national team, playing its first match in 1855.