England vs Ireland ODI Series 2020

8 off the last over, come on!

3 from 4 with a free hit come on haha

get in!

Yes!

Yes boy

Brilliant stuff. Very well done.

Always looked likely when Kevin O'Brien was in, cool as a breeze, experienced finisher. The 2nd wicket stand must be the best one ever, in terms of runs and quality of opposition, great performance, especially when it looked like a 400 chase at one stage, credit to the bowlers for keeping England to 328 on a road.

Fantastic chasing that big score. Special by Stirling and Balbirnie. Series was gone but that salvages something and keeps interest and hope alive for the next cricket Ireland play whenever that is. Campher is the big positive of this series.

Willey man of the series is fair enough, bat and ball. England's bowling shown up to be short when Willey doesn't go bang bang with the swinging new ball. And even when Woakes, Archer and Wood come back, they still haven't replaced Plunkett.

Pity there isn't a T20 series.

Is1ldur wrote: »

Great win, but it was far too close for comfort!

Well chasing 329 was a fairly tough get to be fair, especially against this opposition.

Bit of an interesting stat... 329 was the exact score Ireland posted to chase down and defeat England in the 2011 World Cup in Bangalore.

blackcard wrote: »

Agreed. Beating the world champions at home by only 7 wickets is really not good enough

Well that's not what I mean mate. For it to get down to the second last ball with so many wickets in hand is what I am talking about. A great win, but it was so much closer than the 7 wickets suggests.

Mysterypunter wrote: »

It was close, was 44 needed off 5, the no ball that went for 6 was a great help. Chasing that many, there is always going to be difficulty, but luckily they kept their heads in a tight finish. Cool heads and a game plan was the major difference between today and the previous two games

Was also a batting wicket that doesn't break up like the other two wickets we played on. Ireland made the right decisions in both test 2 and 3. Bat first in 2 and bowl first in 3. We just actually executed this time. 44 off 5 on a good wicket is doable.

I just looked up Paul Sterlings stats, he seems to have been around forever, in fact he has, but he’s only 29, 30 next month. Probably hitting peak now and all going well will be around and playing for years to come...

"Lord Nelson, Lord Beaverbrook, Sir Winston Churchill, Sir Anthony Eden, Clement Attlee, Henry Cooper, Lady Diana, vi har slått dem alle sammen, vi har slått dem alle sammen! (we have beaten them all, we have beaten them all!).

Maggie Thatcher, can you hear me? Maggie Thatcher ... your boys took a hell of a beating! Your boys took a hell of a beating!

Their was something up with my account over the last while and couldn't post but after looking at the highlights on BBC last night it was throughly enjoyable,such a shame there was no crowd at it

A few months ago we were dreading the day when Ranking retired. "Who would replace him?", we asked. This series has shown there's many contenders.

Little is a future superstar, with the right coaching. Young was bowling balls over 85 mph, Campher is a very tidy little all rounder. We didn't even use McCarthy due to injury. Adair also came in and took a wicket.

Similarly Porterfield, we have Marc Ellison qualifying for Ireland now. A few years younger than William and does the same job a little bit better. But Balbirnie's Modus Operandi seems to be youth. Sticking with Delany, Tector, Little, Tucker etc during the series. There would have been calls to bring in Porterfield as an opener instead of Delany but Balbirnie stuck to his guns. Sky were hugely complimentary of his captaincy throughout the whole series. His fields were aggressive, his bowling changes were effective etc. Huge credit to him.

A shame we won't see any international cricket between now and the end of the year anyway, and maybe beyond, as we have wins away to Windies, Afghanistan and now England. It goes to show we belong at the top level of international cricket. We had fixtures against Bangladesh, New Zealand, Zimbabwe and Pakistan all cancelled, as well as the T20I WC, and it would have been an amazing summer of cricket for the lads and they would have learnt so much. Hopefully next year we can make up for lost time

Happy4all wrote: »

given the times we are in, that was a great much needed Ireland sporting moment of achievement.

What's the danger of some of these young lads following the likes of Morgan?

In my opinion - very close to nil. Morgan's situation is slightly different to any of these lads. Morgan's mother is English, Ed Joyce (who left years before Morgan) left because Ireland hadn't a professional team, Rankin is from the UK and might feel more associated to them. That's potentially why he left. Stirling flirted with the idea but he's 29 now so it's unlikely he will give it a go.

There's a young guy called Jack Carson who is from Armagh. He has never played a game for Ireland. He's 19 and has got up and left quite early. He is making it his intention to play for England at the minute so he is focusing on his county career over the pond. Similarly there's a lad called Matthew Foster. Again, from the north and went over to the UK as a teenager and he's still there. Then there's a lad called Marcus O Riordain. I believe he was born in Kent to two Cork parents. He is carving his trade in the county championship. Now these lads are good, how good will they be? Time will only tell. But we may see them back in the irish setup at some stage.

So anyone who wants to play for England they really need to declare quite early these days due to the complex nature of Ireland now being a full member.

We interviewed Andy Balbirnie on Tackling Sport this week.

He spoke about the win over England, bringing young players through and how Ireland can kick on over the next few months.

Worth a listen: https://linktr.ee/tacklingsport