Ireland vs Afghanistan Intercontinental Cup FINAL Dec 10-14th 2013

axe2grind

New ball coming up, hopefully will do the business.

KevIRL

Badly needed wicket

BarryD

Fair dues to the Afghans, that was a good partnership. Kinda finely poised still, we need to concentrate and take any chances that come.

djimi

For anyone (like me!) who wasnt aware, this match is being streamed on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79EgC5Bxl50#t=14665

axe2grind

And another!

BarryD

They're on the ropes now!!

BarryD

djimi wrote: »

For anyone (like me!) who wasnt aware, this match is being streamed on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79EgC5Bxl50#t=14665

Better late than never

axe2grind

Nearing the end, 8 down

KevIRL

2 more to go

wicorthered

Jesus NoB is noisy behind the stumps

Lovely Bloke

/9 now

come on come on come on

djimi

djimi

Fanastic bowling from Mooney in this game. Deserved to get the last wicket.

Strange match this has been; its as if both teams couldnt switch out of T20 mode for the first innings but suddently remembered how to bat! Great performance from Ireland to cap off a great year.

Just a shame for Trent that he couldnt be on the field at the end. There arent enough words to describe what he has meant to Irish cricket. He will be missed.

Lovely Bloke

yahoo!

BarryD

Fair dues to them, that was a long spell yesterday evening and this morning with little reward but they stuck at it and took their chances, by and large.

Be good if we could see our team playing more competitive 4 & 5 day matches like this.

kryogen

Not the best foot forward in terms of making a case for Test status, but what the hell, well done lads!

Fair play to Afghanastan also, gave it their all too.

Please don't leave Trent!

kryogen

djimi wrote: »

Just a shame for Trent that he couldnt be on the field at the end. There arent enough words to describe what he has meant to Irish cricket. He will be missed.

This x1000

wicorthered

kryogen wrote: »

Not the best foot forward in terms of making a case for Test status, but what the hell, well done lads!

Fair play to Afghanastan also, gave it their all too.

Please don't leave Trent!

Easily beating the second best associate, not much more they could do really. Afghanistan are gaining a lot of plaudits lately so it's nice to reaffirm that we're head and shoulders above the rest.

They need to start pushing the case for more first class games against better opposition!

djimi

Thing is, there is no reason why we couldnt be playing a bucketload of 4-5 day games against test nation "A" teams even. No reason at all why they couldnt organize 3-5 match series for us against those sides. Would do us the world of good.

kryogen

wicorthered wrote: »

Easily beating the second best associate, not much more they could do really. Afghanistan are gaining a lot of plaudits lately so it's nice to reaffirm that we're head and shoulders above the rest.

They need to start pushing the case for more first class games against better opposition!

Its not the opposition they beat, its how (both) teams went about pacing themselves and playing the game I was referring to.

The focus needs to shift a little from ODI's and shorter format, we need to get more practise playing the longer format. Look at the innings O Brien and Joyce put in as an example, they were the only two who really tried to pace themselves, it is hardly a coincidence they are the two with the most county cricket experience.

Will should be able to do a better job of pacing himself too.

All in all, great day and sad day for Irish cricket. Now lets keep progressing forward

djimi

kryogen wrote: »

Its not the opposition they beat, its how (both) teams went about pacing themselves and playing the game I was referring to.

The focus needs to shift a little from ODI's and shorter format, we need to get more practise playing the longer format. Look at the innings O Brien and Joyce put in as an example, they were the only two who really tried to pace themselves, it is hardly a coincidence they are the two with the most county cricket experience.

Will should be able to do a better job of pacing himself too.

This was my concern from this game also. I dont know if its a hangover from a long T20 tournament, but for much of this game neither team seemed to know how to pace themselves for a 5 day game. Its not an easy thing to do; even switching from a four day game its a somewhat different mindset.

wicorthered

kryogen wrote: »

Its not the opposition they beat, its how (both) teams went about pacing themselves and playing the game I was referring to.

The focus needs to shift a little from ODI's and shorter format, we need to get more practise playing the longer format. Look at the innings O Brien and Joyce put in as an example, they were the only two who really tried to pace themselves, it is hardly a coincidence they are the two with the most county cricket experience.

Will should be able to do a better job of pacing himself too.

All in all, great day and sad day for Irish cricket. Now lets keep progressing forward

I agree completely with the how the game panned out, like I said earlier it was a amateurish. That being said I think the Afghans were more guilty of this than Ireland. I think we're all in agreement we need to target first class games against stronger opposition. Opposition that are better than us in fact!

This might sound mad, but I think we could do with losing a couple of games to strong teams. I think at associate level it all comes too easy at times and the team lose focus and becomes complacent. Sometimes you learn more in defeat than in victory!

At the end of the day the most important part was winning, if we'd lost playing such loose cricket, our chances of progress would have been hurt. As it is we're still easily the top associate, we've put Afghanistan, who some said were our match firmly back in their box and blooded some younger players into the set up during the competition.

djimi

wicorthered wrote: »

This might sound mad, but I think we could do with losing a couple of games to strong teams. I think at associate level it all comes too easy at times and the team lose focus and becomes complacent. Sometimes you learn more in defeat than in victory!

I agree; you only really improve by playing sides who are stronger than you. Sooner or later we are going to have to start playing the top sides in more than just the occasional ODI match and tournament that the ICC begrudgingly allow us participate in.

BarryD

As I've said before, the politics of international cricket I find hard to understand - I presume control is held firmly by the southern hemisphere full members. But you'd think on the face of it, that they'd see the merit of developing more northern hemisphere and in particular, European teams. And Ireland fits the bill well at present.

Maybe it kinda suits the ECB to have Ireland as an associate and a feeder of occasional talent but surely the redevelopment of the game in Ireland would suit them as well, politically speaking in cricket terms. Never mind the health of the game.

djimi

The problem with the global game is that the more test nations there are, the more the money needs to be split, and while you have a situation where the top nations are the ones that control the ICC, its just not going to happen (not without a massive fight anyway) that they relinquish some of their power and money to the insignificant associates as they seem to see us.

Its an utterly ridiculous situation that cricket finds itself in, where you have a closed shop of 10 (well, 8 + 2) countries who wield all of the power, and nobody can break into that elite group. While this situation is allowed to continue the game of cricket will never grow, because it is very obvious that there is no desire from the top to expand the game, and if anything they have not been shy in their desire to actively block the progress of the associates coming through. Its going to take someone with a bit of foresight to take control and look to bring in some real changes which will aid the associates and expand the game, but right now Im not holding my breath that that will happen; there are just too many people at that level who dont care about what happens outside of their blinkered little world.

God I sound really bitter, dont I?!! :pac:

kryogen

BarryD wrote: »

As I've said before, the politics of international cricket I find hard to understand - I presume control is held firmly by the southern hemisphere full members. But you'd think on the face of it, that they'd see the merit of developing more northern hemisphere and in particular, European teams. And Ireland fits the bill well at present.

Maybe it kinda suits the ECB to have Ireland as an associate and a feeder of occasional talent but surely the redevelopment of the game in Ireland would suit them as well, politically speaking in cricket terms. Never mind the health of the game.

This post right here has almost opened me up on a rant against the BCCI!

spiralism

djimi wrote: »

I agree; you only really improve by playing sides who are stronger than you. Sooner or later we are going to have to start playing the top sides in more than just the occasional ODI match and tournament that the ICC begrudgingly allow us participate in.

It wouldnt even be that hard for say an Australia A team to play a test here on an ashes tour, considering all the games that do go on over the course of them.