The Cricket thread

[stephenite]

I went to bed after Englands 48th over-cannot believe this result. Actually looking forward to work now.

Huge result

[saffron sam2]

Some f**king bandwagon to jump on. Will even watch the highlights at 10 on BBC2

Someone on the wireless said "this is a bit like England beating Ireland at the hurling after we stole their best players". Class!

That's about the height of it. 1/25 the South Africans were at the start. Michael Cusack would have been delighted.

Oh and O'Neill, you know your stuff.

Toul you the Mooneys were crap!

[seafoid]

f**k I love cricket, me.

Hey if you're getting on the band-wagon at least have the manners to do some research first and throw some 'facts' around.

I was in Bangalore when India won it in 2003. Can I climb aboard now?

AFAIK India only won it once, in 1983. Barney Rock was on the team.

[Main Street]

From the betting zone.

Ireland were matched at 400 in-play with Betfair before eventually going on to win an astonishing World Cup game against England in Bangalore.The Irish were chasing an improbable victory target of 328 and when they slumped to 111-5, England traded at 1.01 for £2.7 million, 1.02 for £2.18 million and plenty of other huge sums at prohibitively short prices.

At this point Ireland drifted to 100/1 at Victor Chandler and Sky Bet offered just 1/2000 on an England victory having previously offered 1/100 after Andrew Strauss' men racked up 327-8

[highorlow]

This is a great day for the GAA.

An Irishman's Diary

Never mind the mythology. The status of hurling as Ireland's alleged national sport has always been suspect in the eyes of those of us who are genetically incapable of throwing a small ball into the air with one hand and swinging a hurley with the other, in such a way as make the two objects collide meaningfully, writes Frank McNally .

A more plausible explanation is that the game is an impostor, introduced to this country at some stage by undercover British agents intent on sapping the morale of the indigenous majority who would never be able to play it properly.

A book called The History of Cricket in County Kilkenny - the Forgotten Game does not quite clinch the case. But it does provide enough circumstantial evidence to keep the conspiracy theory alive. Certainly, it will be a source of comfort the next time the hurling demi-gods of Ballyhale and its environs humiliate the finest that the rest of the country has to offer. And in hinting at what might have been for Irish cricket, inter alia, it will also add poignancy tomorrow if our high-flying world cup team has its wings melted.

The central argument in Michael O'Dwyer's book is that barely 100 years ago, cricket was by far the most popular game in Kilkenny, while the national sport was nowhere. Although described by one pre-Famine commentator as "foreign hurling", cricket had spread far beyond the big houses to be played in every town and village, by labourers and peasantry alike. At its peak in 1896, there were 50 teams in Kilkenny, even though the GAA was well up and running.

By contrast, in the county that would one day dominate the game, hurling was in a decrepit state. In 1887, an envoy dispatched by Michael Cusack's journal noted that a game in the city drew no spectators, proving "what little hold the GAA has taken on Kilkenny". Worse than the lack of spectators, however, was the quality of play. "The hurling of both teams was, we believe, the worst and most spiritless ever witnessed on an Irish hillside," lamented the writer. "It would break the heart of a Moycarkey or Galway Gael to witness such a contemptible perversion of the grand old dashing game."

Kilkenny was not unique then in its passion for cricket - not even among the counties later regarded as hurling aristocrats. Tipperary has a very similar history, detailed in a 2004 book by Patrick Bracken. In 1850, there were more cricket teams in that county than in all of Ulster. The village of Toomevara alone had four. And, as in Kilkenny, the game was played regardless of religion or class.

But Tipperary's love affair with cricket peaked earlier than Kilkenny's and ended more abruptly. The game in Tipp revolved around the big towns, of which Kilkenny had none (bar the city itself). It was tainted by association with army garrisons. and during the land agitation of the 1880s, cricket's affiliation to the big houses further weakened it. In Kilkenny, by contrast, cricket had put down roots in the general farming community, and the nationalist appeal of Gaelic games was slower to catch on.

For a while, hurling and cricket coexisted happily. In Kilkenny around 1900, a "dual player" was someone who wielded both bat and hurley. Henry Meagher, the father of hurling legend Lory, was one such all-rounder. But the growing popularity of Gaelic games was not universal. As late as 1898, the ancestral homeland of a later legend, D.J. Carey, could still be described categorically as "a cricket village".

Having given the rest of the country a head start, Kilkenny finally got around to winning an All-Ireland hurling title in 1904, and the rest is history. Yet even then, cricket died hard in the county. Whereas it was all but gone in Tipperary by 1905, the game was still viable in Kilkenny until the outbreak of the first World War, and was revived strongly in the 1920s and 1930s, until a second war intervened.

It was not quite finished then, either. In 1948, a farmer in Kellsgrange created his own cricket pitch and hosted games until 1953. Meanwhile, it struggled on in Gowran too. It had taken a teacher from Cork to implant hurling firmly in the local school, which claimed a first under-age title in 1956. After that, the writing was on the wall for cricket, even in Gowran, where it finally succumbed in 1958.

Its demise will have cheered the ghost of Archbishop Croke who, 74 years earlier, had regretted cricket's popularity alongside such other "foreign and fantastic field-sports" as tennis, polo and croquet. While conceding that these were all "health-giving exercises in their way", he lamented that they were "not racy of the soil, but rather alien to it".

And there's the rub. The mystery, surely, is that the rich, loamy soil of Kilkenny and Tipperary seems to have been equally suited to hurling and cricket. Whereas, for all its alleged raciness, the national game languishes wherever land conditions are anything less than excellent - which is most of the country. Maybe Teagasc should conduct soil tests.

None of this proves my deep-seated suspicion that hurling is a foreign game. But for the majority of Irish people who lack the hand-eye coordination and wrist skills necessary to play it well, confirmation of its close relationship to cricket is welcome. So is the ready-made excuse, should the worst come to the worst in Guyana tomorrow. After all, if history had taken a different turn, Henry Shefflin might be opening the batting for Ireland. Then the English bowlers would be quaking in their boots.

( The History of Cricket in County Kilkenny is available from O'Dwyer Books, College Gardens, Kilkenny at €35 + €7 p&p. It is also on sale in Greene's of Dublin, and in most Kilkenny bookshops.)

© 2007 The Irish Times

[Hardy]

George Hook was in tears - a few times - presenting his show on Newstalk this evening.

[Tony Baloney]

f**k I love cricket, me.

Hey if you're getting on the band-wagon at least have the manners to do some research first and throw some 'facts' around.

I was in Bangalore when India won it in 2003. Can I climb aboard now?

AFAIK India only won it once, in 1983. Barney Rock was on the team.

Aye you're right, had it in my head that they won it but they were well beat by the Aussies.

[ONeill]

George Hook was in tears - a few times - presenting his show on Newstalk this evening.

He'll have to update his, "You can add Thomond Park to Fatima, Knock and Lourdes. The lame will come here and walk, they'll be selling water here, because this defies logic."

[Denn Forever]

I have never watched cricket, probably never will. Couldn't tell you where the nearest cricket pitch is. But this is surely one of the most amazing result in sporting history. It is also f**king hilarious 

Myles, Its closer than you think.

http://gaaboard.com/board/index.php?topic=16674.0

[Kerry Mike]

Is it any wonder we are good at this sport, as a nation we love the auld cupan of tae or three and sitting around moaning if its going to rain all day and have been known to bate a few balls with a lump of timber as well. We are naturals at it I guess, a proud day no doubt about it.

[Main Street]

From the Telegraph match report

At one stage Ireland were 111 for five. If this were a Test nation who had pulled it off, we'd be feting this victory as one of the most remarkable in years. The fact that Ireland have done it - a nation of about 25 cricketers, half of which are called Joyce - must surely make this one of the greatest victories in history. Too far? I don't think so

Not far enough by half.

[seafoid]

f**k I love cricket, me.

Hey if you're getting on the band-wagon at least have the manners to do some research first and throw some 'facts' around.

I was in Bangalore when India won it in 2003. Can I climb aboard now?

AFAIK India only won it once, in 1983. Barney Rock was on the team.

Aye you're right, had it in my head that they won it but they were well beat by the Aussies.

In India last week the bookies had India favs at 3/1 and Australia at 6/1 and I was thinking they were crazy. Australia don't choke like India.

[IolarCoisCuain]

George Hook was in tears - a few times - presenting his show on Newstalk this evening.

He's driven me to tears more than once himself, the fat bastard. And I doubt I'm alone. 

[dillinger]

Hey lads, there's one thing we can all thank the British Empire for. CRICKET

[Denn Forever]

Will we win?  Going to enjoy this.