Karma 1 - Ed Joyce 0 ?

WellyJ

Looks like a bad injury tonight for Ed in the Twenty20 game VS Sri Lanka...

Dislocation and possible fracture, game was delayed for the ambulance to come

on

Can't help but feel this is some kind of punishment for abandoning Ireland for

England,

But having said that I wish him the best of luck in recovery!

England bottled it in the end btw, failed to get 9 off the last over and lost by 2

runs,

Nice work SL and best of luck for the ODI series!

county

just seen it on sky,looked nasty

RuggieBear

yikes

He did not abandon Ireland btw.

England are the only Test team in Europe and i think it's fair that a player with his talent/skill should be ablt to try and demonstrate it at the highest level possible.

smarty

Ed has contributed hugely to Irish cricket and has not abandoned Ireland. He helped Ireland to qualify for the World Cup.

He has been living in England full time for the past 5 years and has been playing for Middlesex for seven years.

He is very different to the likes of Graeme Hick (born in Zimbabwe) or Kevin Peterson (born in South Africa). Ireland do not play test cricket and as RuggieBear said, in order to play at the highest level, Ed had to declair for England.

WellyJ

smarty wrote:

Ed has contributed hugely to Irish cricket and has not abandoned Ireland. He helped Ireland to qualify for the World Cup.

He has been living in England full time for the past 5 years and has been playing for Middlesex for seven years.

He is very different to the likes of Graeme Hick (born in Zimbabwe) or Kevin Peterson (born in South Africa). Ireland do not play test cricket and as RuggieBear said, in order to play at the highest level, Ed had to declair for England.

Sure,

But if all our best players keep declaring for England than we never will have test status.....

DMC

To be a test team in the future, Ireland need to be professional.... I can't see Ireland becoming professional, the funding, venues and support is not, and sadly, will never be there.

When you see that New Zealand will only have 2 tests over the next 18 months, who the hell would we play in a test match arena, if the big countries are squeezing revenue, playing against each other so often, to the detrement of smaller nations? Are New Zealand going to be left on the shelf??

Which brings me back to Joyce. He made the right decision, if he wanted to make a proper living and career out of cricket. He had too much talent for an amatuer side, he proved his talent in country cricket, which logically meant, that if he wanted to improve further, he'd have no other option than to play for a test country.

WellyJ

DMC wrote:

To be a test team in the future, Ireland need to be professional.... I can't see Ireland becoming professional, the funding, venues and support is not, and sadly, will never be there.

When you see that New Zealand will only have 2 tests over the next 18 months, who the hell would we play in a test match arena, if the big countries are squeezing revenue, playing against each other so often, to the detrement of smaller nations? Are New Zealand going to be left on the shelf??

Which brings me back to Joyce. He made the right decision, if he wanted to make a proper living and career out of cricket. He had too much talent for an amatuer side, he proved his talent in country cricket, which logically meant, that if he wanted to improve further, he'd have no other option than to play for a test country.

Forgive my naivety,

But if Bangladesh were able to attain test status why not Ireland?

There are similarities between them, and surely we have equal funding?

RuggieBear

cricket is huge there

WellyJ

RuggieBear wrote:

cricket is huge there

Ah yes,

Never thought of it that way, i forget that not everyone in this country shares my enthusiasm for the game

DMC

Just to clear some matters up, I want Ireland to do well. Get to a level and compete. That’s why, I feel, that the level is the one day game.

Cricket will never be huge in this country. Once you've done GAA, soccer and rugby, most young kids will see cricket well down the pecking order. And once talented kids get nailed into playing one of the big five, they won't think of cricket, unless the club or school is strong.

Also, we've relied heavily on imports from overseas to bolster our national team. Doesn't say much from the indigenous supply.

You can see where Mark Butcher is coming from when he slagged off smaller nations competing in the World Cup, to some extent. Its good to try and expand the game internationally, but wouldn’t it be better to get it right first in the most recent nations allowed into the game??