Thank you, Ireland, for the display of efforts you have put on the field are some of the superior displays ever to be extracted out of any team in the current tournament. Such an enthusiasm and refreshing faces you played with over the past few weeks that the delight came and never went. The level of emotions your players ran through, as if a kid is set loose in a candy store or perhaps a fat boy has set off the alarms in a frenzy in a cheese factory. You have definitely helped us make headways into the betterment of our cricket, arguably followed more than religion itself. The inclusion of your team could not have come at a better time! You have made us realize how inefficacious and useless planning we were planning to plan, even before the wheels had touched the airport for our first match against Canada.
How accurately accurate Trent Johnston’s first sentence was, when at the post-match ceremony, he stated our inconsistent and repeatedly failed top order and how they targeted it as one of the main factors in making the game ‘competitive’ (not winnable, but competitive). How mercifully true, for the lack of a better word. From this entire outfit of part-time weekend cricketers, I really admired the way they played their cricket. It is of no value to even step in the field, let alone anything worthwhile, when you don’t have the competitive psychology as a heavy support in your arsenal. So positively he had made his point that I looked at the guy and was left in an amazement; amazed that the simple of simplest tactics could not be deployed (the opening issue), here at the home base. Trent’s facial expressions said it all. Actions speak larger than words and actions are precisely what had taken place that day. If those part-time weekend cricketers have figured and exploited the weakness(es) of this batting order regardless of what surface the match was played on, why are we left at bay? Why are we, as a team and as a nation, never found the time to fix the defects, permanently, and not temporary (or on a series-by-series basis - a new buzzword). The head of NCA has been allocated a time period of 30 days to come up with an opening pair and stick with it, using which, we can move further in our quest. But Mudassar Nazar is not a part of what is written here; Ireland is.
A prime example of dedication - In a game against South Africa, the latter was one shot away from the victory; a boundary would have sealed the deal. Prince at that time, if memory serves, had pulled/flicked/whatever’ed the ball away at wide long-off and it raced like a rocket. Mere inches from the rope, from the left side of the screen and out of nowhere, a classical footwork from one of the fielders stopped the ball from going over the ropes. From the right, another emerged, picked it and released with the same intensity as it came towards him, at the striker’s end. South Africa had won the no-contest, but with their grandest efforts, Ireland had done themselves justice with another great day at the office. The batsmen had ran two and only needed one run after the cameo, but what transpired the ball before had left its mark in a very positive fashion. They could have let the ball sail past them, and it would have ended. Instead, what matters is the mindset of an individual and how much efforts he is willing to put in something that is a part of him.
A team comprising of eleven proper cricket players had outplayed another team consisting of; an opening pair who cannot bat on any given day and twice on Sundays, unless the opposition happens to be Zimbabwe and braids are back in fashion; another top-order who have been carrying the team as a one-man show where three men are divided by as many factions, and a middle - not lower - order comprising of cricketers who were on the verge of their third trimester; all beaten fair and square. Blame the grass, blame the janitor, blame the milkman; the bottom-line is, strategy was put into place by the exploitation of the top-order and if anything, Irish captain and the team should be given the recognition that they have thoroughly deserved; no, not for just the beating, but for the (hopeful) good that is likely to come in the near future. The way Ireland had played their cricket, physically and mentally, they had come out as a better team in the end. From that point until hereon, I rarely came across anyone giving credit to a team who had taken cricket as a side-job, as a hobby, and had put their hearts on their sleeves. A win or a loss does matter, but not as much as the fighting spirit, which had been a part of their cricket from the beginning. Losing matches in and out and getting humiliated is hard enough as it is; one who has a captain who can lead from the front and march the troops forward with positive and aggressive focus is the toughest. At least Ireland had accomplished something that we so long to have.
