The Cricket Thread

**ArdeeBhoy** · 06/05/2017, 2:15 PM

Have a spare pair for tomorrow, 7/5 for Ireland game @ Lords!
£20 each or £35 for the pair!!

Slim chance you'll meet Gather Round also??

**TheBoss** · 22/06/2017, 3:22 PM

HUGE NEWS!

Ireland now a Full Member along with Afghanistan!

https://www.icc-cricket.com/news/422449

**nigel-harps1954** · 22/06/2017, 3:38 PM

Absolutely massive news! Whens the first test match?!

**OwlsFan** · 15/05/2018, 9:37 AM

Haven't managed to make it to any of the game which surprises some people, being a founder member of a cricket club (a "Park club" as it would be known as in the upper echelons of the game here) in Dublin. Whenever I've booked to go to a game in England or a couple in Ireland, they were rained off so I decided I wouldn't risk this one. As it happens, the first day was rained off and some of my friends had to spend the day in the tent drinking (God bless them) but the rest of the Test Match (sounds strange to say) has been interesting and for O'Brien to score a century against one of the best test attacks in the game is remarkable. Whether Ireland can bat on to make the lead over 200 remains to be seen.

It's a nice batting track in Malahide. One of the few places I've scored a fifty. For the only time we got a professional to video the game and his camera action showed I was stumped on 23. However, our umpire (we umpire our own games at a lower level in Irish cricket which causes no end of trouble) was day dreaming and didn't give me out. Thanks, Charlie. It's on Betamax someplace. I occasionally meet their wicket-keeper and he still reminds me that "we cheated". All's love and war in the lower echelons of Irish cricket.

**OwlsFan** · 15/05/2018, 3:59 PM

Lost by 5 wickets. Ireland needed another 70 this am which was asking a bit too much. Still, not disgraced by any means.

**nigel-harps1954** · 15/05/2018, 11:53 PM

Cracking performance really besides the first innings. Could have put that down to early jitters maybe.

Super performance from Kevin O'Brien, will be disappointed to have been taken out early on return to the pitch though.

Tim Murtagh took a couple of beauty's on the final day too. Overall a good exercise. Need to start bringing through a bit of younger talent now though, it's not exactly the youngest team out there anymore and we're coming to the end of a golden generation.

**OwlsFan** · 24/05/2018, 10:11 AM

I see a scam marriage operation was being operated by a member of The Hills Cricket Club https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crim...atch-1.3504893 It's just not cricket and they lost the game as well I am reliably informed.

**OwlsFan** · 16/07/2019, 1:24 PM

You won't see much better sport than the World Cup Final on Sunday. Sport at its best and although the Final at Wimbledon was also a cracker, they just don't come much better than that game won on the last ball of the tournament with the winners led by a lad from Rush.

**NeverFeltBetter** · 16/07/2019, 1:55 PM

I tuned in for the last hour or so and got fairly hooked in by the drama. Thought that late 6 that was basically a weird loophole was very unfair on New Zealand, but they should have put it away in the last over, and allowed a crazy amount of runs in England's batting super-over.

**OwlsFan** · 26/07/2019, 1:24 PM

Shame the Test in Lord's ends in humiliation but at least they made a game out of it for the previous 2 days.

**ArFella** · 26/07/2019, 2:52 PM

It really is the hope that kills you, thought that 182 was an achievable total but the conditions did us no favours and England really showed their class to avoid total humiliation. We'll beat them eventually but it would have been incredible to do it at the first time of asking.

**OwlsFan** · 11/07/2022, 7:02 AM

Amazing game against New Zealand. Win for the latter again over Ireland on the penultimate ball with only one wicket left.

**OwlsFan** · 17/07/2022, 12:17 PM

..and the final game a one run win for NZ. Quite a series.

**SkStu** · 13/02/2023, 12:30 PM

Eoin Morgan retires from all cricket at age 36. Bit of a legend of the game across the water. How is he regarded in Ireland? It is one thing for a Declan Rice type situation (for the day that is in it) but quite another when an Irishman born and bred dons the colours of the auld enemy. I had made the move to Canada by the time Morgan made the move to England so never really had my ear to the ground on how it was received and how he is regarded since. All i have to compare it to was the shock (and, to be honest, disgust and outrage of a teenage SkStu) when Kyren Bracken togged out for England against Ireland in the rugby sometime in the 90's.

As a slightly more mature fellow now, I can appreciate him as an exceptional talent in his sport. Someone who must have impressed even the most little of Little Englanders in terms of what he achieved. Admirable. Would he get the plaudits from the sporting community in Ireland?

from the BBC tribute https://www.bbc.com/sport/cricket/61966705

Like Sir Bobby Moore and Martin Johnson, men that have captained England to World Cup glory, Morgan is an immortal of English sport.

**nigel-harps1954** · 13/02/2023, 7:47 PM

Irish media been very quiet about it today, but then Irish media don't really pay attention to cricket anyway, beyond a big Ireland result here or there.

I think, at the time, his reasons would have been understood, similar to Boyd Rankin and others who went to England to have a chance of playing test cricket. The manner in which Morgan carried himself though, proud Englander, captain of England, all that sort of craic, felt just a bit wrong all along.

Part of me thought he'd come back at some stage, similar to what Ed Joyce done, but it didn't happen, and he's just gone down as an England legend and nothing else now. The fact Cricket Ireland didn't even acknowledge him on social media would speak volumes about how little he's regarded here now.

The lack of any outrage is probably just cricket being so small in Ireland, and the vast majority of Irish cricket coming from a largely protestant base, and so fairly indifferent to the whole England/Ireland thing.

**OwlsFan** · 14/02/2023, 1:48 PM

Originally Posted by nigel-harps1954

Irish media been very quiet about it today, but then Irish media don't really pay attention to cricket anyway, beyond a big Ireland result here or there.

I think, at the time, his reasons would have been understood, similar to Boyd Rankin and others who went to England to have a chance of playing test cricket. The manner in which Morgan carried himself though, proud Englander, captain of England, all that sort of craic, felt just a bit wrong all along.

Part of me thought he'd come back at some stage, similar to what Ed Joyce done, but it didn't happen, and he's just gone down as an England legend and nothing else now. The fact Cricket Ireland didn't even acknowledge him on social media would speak volumes about how little he's regarded here now.

The lack of any outrage is probably just cricket being so small in Ireland, and the vast majority of Irish cricket coming from a largely protestant base, and so fairly indifferent to the whole England/Ireland thing.

You're wrong about the Protestant thing. Most northside cricket teams are Catholic working class. Morgan played for Rush and I played against his dad on numerous occasions and had many a run in with him. I remember seeing Eoin warming up as a kid on the sideline and even at that age (about 10), I gaped in admiration at what he was doing with the bat and ball. The only Protestant club are YMCA. CUS (my alma mater) where Morgan went to school usually win the schools cricket cup and last year they beat Blackrock in the Final. The numbers of Asian players playing cricket in Ireland has grown enormously at all levels. When England won the World Cup against New Zealand a few years back, it was on the RTE news with members of Rush being interviewed and saying how great it was that a lad from Rush has won the world cup. But it is of course a minority sport even behind hockey because it doesn't appear in the Olympics so Morgan doesn't appear much on the radar and he opted to play for England at a time when the international team was no great shakes. I didn't have an issue with him declaring for England at the time because he was never going to make a living at the game in Ireland but I am just not sure about his singing GSTQ.

**nigel-harps1954** · 16/02/2023, 5:41 PM

I stand corrected, mistake made by suggesting it might be a country-wide thing. It's certainly the case in this end of the country however!

**Stuttgart88** · 03/03/2023, 10:43 AM

NZ vs England second test was amazing.

Btw, I never had much issue with Morgan playing for England. The 2 tier nature of international cricket drives talent up the ladder, not unlike rugby. His mum is English and he spent part of his education in England.

He actually lived up the road from us when he first started at Middlesex, according to my postman.

**OwlsFan** · 08/03/2023, 4:04 PM

Originally Posted by Stuttgart88

NZ vs England second test was amazing.

Btw, I never had much issue with Morgan playing for England. The 2 tier nature of international cricket drives talent up the ladder, not unlike rugby. His mum is English and he spent part of his education in England.

He actually lived up the road from us when he first started at Middlesex, according to my postman.

Never knew that about his mother. Very disappointed to have missed that test. Not shown on Sky.

**SaintMel** · 29/03/2023, 8:29 PM

At an all-island level though I'd imagine cricket is disproportionately protestant. Other than Dublin most cricket clubs are in Ulster where I'd be surprised if there were many Catholics playing