At the cricket World Cup yesterday, Ireland beat England. In Ireland there are a few hundred cricket players. There is no professional or even semi professional league. In England it is the national game. There are a million schoolboy, amateur and county players. Is the current England team good? Well they just won the Ashes in devastating fashion against Australia. Did Ireland have a chance of winning? The bookies didn't think so. Ireland were 400:1 against outsiders. That famed South African team that beat New Zealand in the 1995 world cup were 3:1 outsiders. The odds against Seabiscuit beating War Admiral were a measly 2:1.
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How did it happen? Surprisingly England played quite well. They did not choke. It was just that Ireland played astonishingly. Kevin O'Brien scored the fastest hundred ever in the history of the cricket world cup and the rest of the team kept their nerve to win the match with five balls to spare. You can read the Guardian's live blog here. It's entertaining stuff. Smyth and Gardner start off assuming an easy victory, then they begin to get a sense that something is up. By the final few overs the bloggers are convinced that they're watching the greatest one day cricket match that there has ever been. I'd go further. I can't think of a bigger upset in the century and a half of world sport. Is Kevin O'Brien a hero in Ireland? Well the new Prime Minister called him and he made the front page in all the papers. As one of the bloggers said, I'd be very surprised if O'Brien ever has to buy another round of drinks in his life.
13 comments:
I laughed out loud when I heard the news and that's not just because Australians, like the Irish, enjoy a first-class English stuff-up. I've been telling anyone who'll listen that Ireland is emerging as a fine one-day cricket nation. It'd be even stronger if Eoin Morgan, like Ed Joyce, decided to play for his homeland. Ireland beat the West Indies in a minor match in 1969 (by getting them magnificently drunk the night before, apparently) and have been criticised in the past for playing some blow-ins but what was notable about the win over England is that the key performances were by Mooney and O'Brien, two Dublin boys. Roddy Doyle had a rant against cricket in, I think, The Snapper but who knows where the game could go after this?
I followed this match on cricinfo as it was being played. I am still in awe of this and I agree it is the greatest upset in sports. This is way bigger than their 2007 WC victory of PAK. England's score of 327 would normally be enough to defeat any full member team, let alone an associate. Plus, Porterfield got bowled for a duck to start things out. O'brien's hairdo is awesome too!!
Sean,
It seems O'Brien coloured his hair to support the Irish Cancer Society, but he'd be a fool to change it now.
Irrelevant to cricket Adrian but
http://www.interpretationbydesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/IBD_baseball_flowchart.jpg
Man, I really hope at least some of you had money on this one.
If one believes in portents, it's a good sign for the Irish, and even if you don't I bet there are a lot people in Ireland right now who are thinking the future is less bleak than they thought yesterday.
David
Its ironic that they are probably going to be excluded from the next world cup because they "aren't competitive".
Sean
Yeah I didnt stay up because I assumed it was a foregone conclusion and because I HAVE to stay up for the Ireland V England match in the rugby. A pleasant surprise this morning however.
Matt
The link didnt link but I found it here:
http://www.interpretationbydesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/IBD_baseball_flowchart-1024x685.jpg
Its very good, except for the Yankee bashing. They reach roughly the same conclusions as me - The Pittsburgh Pirates are about the only permissable team to root for.
Seana
No, no money. I had a few bucks on Holland winning the world cup last year at extremely long odds. They came very very close.
Yeah, it'll be bollocks if they are excluded. Certainly Canada and Kenya haven't been competitive but Ireland and the Netherlands have both recorded scores of 300+. Hmm, both against the Poms.
This is why, despite all its failings, I'm still drawn to sports. You really never know what's going to happen.
Congratulations to the Irish team.
David
Yet it looks inevitable that its going to happen.
Dana
You really never know except when its the Harlem Globetrotters V The Washington Generals.
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