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Luke Wood, Lancashire’s left-arm swing bowler, will open up to Paul Stirling and Ross Adair.
“Ireland in mid-September?” begins Robert Wilson, although he did right ‘Dear Rob’ before that and on reflection it was unfair of me to exclude that as you may unjustly deem him a man of few manners. “Iconoclastic meteorological choice, that one. From the last week of September to the third week in May, the Irish sky is black as a bruise, fourteen inches above your eyebrows and it blames you - for everything. It’s a sky for crouching under and thinking of mortality’s sweet release. Forget spin or swing, the ball is more likely to commit suicide than anything else.
“Yes, I admit the sun is splitting the trees here in Paris, but I paid my bloody dues with that sky. I get to put the boot in.
“PS Fluffing a bit of ground fielding in Ireland comes with finger pain that is simply unavailable anywhere else (the Scottish may demur but they’re notorious liars about such things).”
The players line up for the anthems. The weather in Malahide was vile overnight, it says here, but it’s dry now and there’s even a suggestion of sunshine.
Ireland’s winter starts here
The ongoing struggles and frustrations of Irish cricket are covered in this excellent piece from Taha.
A lack of cricket at home is an ongoing problem. Last year Cricket Ireland called off a tour by Australia, and Afghanistan’s visit this summer was also cancelled, the governing body citing “financial reasons”. With no permanent stadium infrastructure, the costs of transforming club grounds into international venues has been a major stumbling block.
“We effectively have to build everything,” says Warren Deutrom, who stepped away as CI’s chief executive last month after 19 years in the job. Up go the temporary stands for England’s visit.
Yet these cancellations come as CI’s annual income jumped from €10.2m (£8.8m) to €16.4m (£14.2m) in 2024 thanks to increased funding from the International Cricket Council. Deutrom’s retort is that the governing body has had to direct more attention to other areas of the sport.
Taha Hashim’s series preview
Harry Tector and Paul Stirling “are the two main threats with the bat” for Ireland, said [Jacob] Bethell. The hosts enter underprepared having not played since June – a completely different story to England – and will be without the whippy left-arm pace of Josh Little, on the mend from a rib injury. Yet the only completed T20 meeting between these two sides brought an Irish victory in Melbourne at the World Cup three years ago, a reminder that it may not be all smooth for Bethell over the coming days.
The teams
Ireland are without some key players, most notably Josh Little and Mark Adair, but can still put out a strong side. Gareth Delany is winning his 100th international cap.
Ireland Stirling (c), R Adair, H Tector, Tucker (wk), Delany, Dockrell, Campher, McCarthy, Hume, Humphreys, Young.
England Salt, Buttler (wk), Bethell (c), Rehan, Banton, S Curran, Jacks, J Overton, Dawson, Rashid, L Wood.
England win the toss and bowl
They’ve only gone and picked Rehan Ahmed – and he’s carded to come in at No4! Rehan and Jamie Overton replace Harry Brook and Jofra Archer, the only changes to the side that marmalised South Africa at Old Trafford last Friday.
Paul Stirling says Ireland would also have bowled first.
If I may borrow a phrase from Michael Holding, pace is pace. And this is a cracking piece from Jim Wallace on what it’s like when bowling 90mph+ feels like the easiest thing in the world.
Preamble
It’s 23 October 2003 – no, really, it is! – and England’s inaugural Test match against Bangladesh is becoming a bit of struggle. After dominating the first two days, they slip from 137 for 0 to 295 all out, with Marcus Trescothick thwacking 111 and Graham Thorpe* batting almost four hours for a skilful 64. “A pretty sorry first-innings effort” is the verdict of Dan Rookwood on the Guardian OBO.
Bangladesh finished the day on 12 for 1 in their second innings, a deficit of 80, and England hit the hay with a slippery fourth-innings chase on their mind. (Spoiler alert: England eventually cantered to a target of 164 inside 40 overs to win by seven wickets.)
On the same day, a Bajan couple welcomed their first child into the world. Graham and Giselle Bethell christened him Jacob Graham, and they will be among the proudest people on earth today when he captains England in the first T20 international against Malahide.
Feeling old? Don’t worry you are. When Bethell was born, Sugababes were top of the hit parade with Hole in the Head, England were a month away from winning the men’s rugby World Cup, Twenty20 cricket was barely four months old and nobody was suffering death by a thousand notifications.
At 21 years 329 days, Bethell will demolish the record for England’s youngest-ever captain, set unknowingly by Montague Bowden (23y 144d) in 1888-89. Scheduling a match in Malahide in mid-September comes with certain meteorological risks, but the weather is fine and there’s no danger of a washout. Ireland’s aim is turn Bethell’s big day into a damp squib.
The match starts at 1.30pm
* If you love Thorpey as much as the rest of us, this interview with the great Don McRae before that Bangladesh series is a fascinating and poignant read. I don’t know whether it needs a trigger warning or not but, if it counts for anything, I had a lump in my throat when I read it
