After wins against Pakistan in 2007 and England in 2011, Ireland have a history of upsetting big teams at the Cricket World Cup, and will be looking to continue that tradition in the 2015 tournament.
In the same way that Australia, England and India have prepared for the tournament by competing in a tri-series, Ireland have done the same, but with lower-key opposition in Afghanistan and Scotland. However, going into the final game of the mini-tournament against Scotland on Monday, the three teams all look evenly matched, a fact which is reflected by the standings.
The form men in the tournament for the Irish have been wicket-keeper Niall O’Brien, who has made 135 runs in his three innings, and medium-pacer Craig Young, who has taken seven wickets at an impressive economy rate of 3.60. However, that pair is by no means the only set of players capable of contributing on the biggest stage of them all; Kevin O’Brien famously hit the fastest World Cup century from fifty balls against England in 2011, and explosive opener Paul Stirling managed a 72-ball 101 in the same tournament against the Netherlands. Captain William Porterfield and batsmen Ed Joyce and Gary Wilson are all vastly experienced at county level, and members of the ‘Blarney Army’ will be expectant that their batsmen will fire.
The main issue for the Irish will be their lack of bowling options. After Tim Murtagh was ruled out of the competition with a fractured foot on Sunday, to be replaced by Max Sorensen, a lot will be required from the main five bowlers in the Irish squad, namely Young, medium-pace bowler Kevin O’Brien, spinner George Dockrell, and seamers John Mooney and Alex Cusack. Paul Stirling’s part-time off-spin is also a valuable option, but it is hard to see how they will bowl teams out with their lack of pace-bowling resources.
Hammer blow to miss a WC with broken foot but thats the way it goes in sport i guess. Best of luck to the boys and will be watching #coybig
— tim murtagh (@tjmurtagh) January 18, 2015
Dockrell is also a man who needs to kick-start his career with a good World Cup. Having impressed at the 2011 edition of the tournament, in which he only conceded more than a run-a-ball in one of his six bowling spells, albeit in favourable conditions for spin, he has failed to capitalise on his enormous talent so far at Somerset, where he has been guilty of bowling too short on flat pitches. If he does the same in Oceania, the world’s best batsmen will undoubtedly punish him.
Durham’s Peter Chase is another exciting prospect who could yet feature in the tournament, despite not having played yet in the Tri-Series; his form in the last few County Championship games of 2014 was excellent, and he is very tall, which gives Phil Simmonds’s team the option of extra pace and bounce. The 21-year-old has only played in five games of first-class or List A cricket, and yet he finds himself on the fringes of Ireland’s playing XI; perhaps this indicates that despite a strong first team, there is a lack of depth at the moment in Irish Cricket.
One thing that will count against Ireland is their lack of ODI experience compared to many other of the sides in Pool B; UAE’s squad have a combined 71 caps, and Ireland have 514, but every ICC Full Member side in the group has over 850 caps in their squad, showing the comparative lack of opportunities that the Irish fifteen have had in International Cricket. And despite Ireland’s disparity in strength between their batting and bowling options, their most recent ODI, against Afghanistan, would imply that both attributes need a lot of work. They did manage to bowl Afghanistan out, for only 246, but failing to get near that in fifty overs is a crime at the highest level of one-day cricket, and they were skittled out for just 175 in 43.3 overs, with Paul Stirling’s enterprising cameo of 36 the only batting highlight.
Here it is…our 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup Squad pic.twitter.com/Rvhjuu89rW
— Cricket Ireland (@Irelandcricket) January 5, 2015
Ireland’s fixtures in Pool B have fallen as well as could be hoped for; their three winnable games all come towards the start of the tournament. The opener against West Indies, who have proved in the ODI series with South Africa that they are a very mediocre side, is a fixture which they will be targeting as a potential victory, and two of the side’s next three fixtures are against UAE and Zimbabwe, the other teams they will need to beat if they are to reach the quarter-final stage.
Even if Ireland do not make the quarter-finals, the aim will be to yet again prove to the world, and more importantly to the ICC, that the associate teams can compete at the World Cup; plans to reduce the tournament to a ten-team affair are vehemently opposed by Cricket Ireland, and if they are to push for test status, it is imperative that the boys in green are not humiliated in this tournament.
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