A Presidential Diary Part 15

November 28th 2013 by Robin Walsh |

Cricket Ireland President Robin Walsh gives his latest update from the Irish camp in the desert.

Any excuse for dressing up, I say,  and they don’t come any better than an awards’ dinner.

The Irish players and backroom staff call their best bib and tucker their Number Ones: shamrock-crested blazer, matching slacks, white shirt, Cricket Ireland tie. They cut fine figures as they pass through airports on their ever-increasing globetrotting.

And that’s the way it will be at an awards’ dinner in a private room in their hotel tonight, the only concession to the Abu Dhabi heat will be open-necked shirts. But, then, it’s an awards’ dinner with a difference.

It was back at the end of October that the 19-man squad left Dublin for the UAE. It will be the first day of December when they return, their mission to qualify for next spring’s World Twenty20 finals well and truly accomplished in extra quick time by topping their group - unbeaten.

It’s a long time in anyone’s book and, as I mentioned in my previous diary, coach Phil Simmons places team bonding high in his list of priorities. And that’s the name of the game - or rather, games -in downtime. Over the weeks the squad has split into two teams and competitions have ranged from golf to ten pin bowling, darts to pool. 

There’s even one involving making a television commercial with a theme from the movies. One team opted for a take on Grease with manager Roy Torrens and Paul Stirling dressed to the nines as Pink Ladies and James Shannon as a somewhat more convincing, if less hilarious, John Travolta figure.
The other team opted for Gladiator, starring Tim Murtagh, aka Maximus.

Phil Simmons tends to leave little to chance and so it is with tonight’s awards’ dinner. Cricket Ireland’s Performance Director, Richard Holdsworth, has been in Dubai at ICC strategy meetings and his luggage has contained no fewer than nine awards.  Cricket Ireland’s chairman Ross McCollum has just flown in for the side’s final two games in the tournament and he and I have been invited to don the blazers to help present the awards.

One thing will be missing in keeping with the team’s strict discipline. There will be no uncorking of celebration drinks. Tomorrow night under the lights of the Shaikh Zayed Stadium there is a little matter of the championship semi-final against the UAE and, if they win, the grand final against either Afghanistan or Nepal on Saturday.

Ireland have had four match free days since their overwhelming 85-run victory over Hong Kong last Sunday, a game remarkable for two individual performances.

The irrepressible Paul Sterling’s Man of the Match award can rarely have been bettered by an all-round performance in a first class 20-over game. His 77 runs in 46 balls took Ireland to an invincible 207 for 4, only to be followed by the astonishing figures of 4 for 10 off his four overs of off spins.

And step forward James Shannon who hitherto had sat patiently on the subs’ bench with Andrew McBrine and Stuart Thompson during Ireland’s previous five victories.

He was given his chance against Hong Kong and literally grabbed it with both hands. Such was the power of the batting line-up that he didn’t make it to the middle but there was ample consolation in the field: two stunning, diving catches on the boundary and a wicket in his first and only delivery in international cricket to end the Hong Kong innings.

So with the game against Italy rained off, Ireland emerged the only unbeaten side of the 16 in the two groups.

Mission Accomplished. Well almost. The first aim was to qualify for Bangladesh. The ultimate aim is for William Porterfield to lift the tournament trophy as he did two years ago. We shall find out very soon.