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The senior men’s team made history in May, playing England at Lord’s and hosting two full-members in the Walton Tri Series.
It’s been a busy month for the senior men who played an historic two-match series against England in Bristol and at Lords, before hosting New Zealand and Bangladesh in a Tri Series at Malahide and Clontarf.
For the very first time Ireland travelled to England to play competitive one-day cricket against England when they played at Bristol and Lords, on the 5th and 7th of May. Unfortunately the ‘house full’ signs and the decent Irish crowd who travelled to Bristol couldn’t compensate for a quality bowling spell from Adil Rashid, which led to a 7 wicket defeat.

Two day’s later came Ireland’s first visit to the ‘Home of Cricket’ for a competitive match against England on Sunday May 7th. The Irish fans who assembled for the pilgrimage to Lord’s were doing so knowing that William Porterfield and his men would be inspired by the Long Room. How could they not be when they were living many a young Irish cricketer’s dream of donning the green at Lord’s?

When the Ireland team emerged to field, they did so in front of twenty four thousand fans, many of whom had travelled from Ireland. It was truly uplifting to see club badges from all over Ireland represented in the strong Irish contingent of fans in attendance.

Porterfield himself led from the front and scored a strong 82. Indeed he could have made his way on to the Honours Board with a century but the skipper was bowled by Mark Wood attempting a big shot as Ireland chased victory.

A second defeat in three days it may have been but Ireland left Lord’s having played their part in entertaining over 24,000 fans.

After Lord’s, the Ireland men continued making history on their return to Ireland, when for the first time, a Tri Series including two full-members was hosted on Irish soil.

New Zealand and Bangladesh, in preparing for the ICC Champions Trophy in England, came to Ireland and took part in the Walton Tri Series with matches played between Malahide and Clontarf. With 6 games to be played in an early Irish summer it was perhaps fortunate that after Ireland had made a promising start in reducing Bangladesh to 70/4 at one point in game one, that this was the only match not to produce a result.

Ireland’s other games produced two defeats to New Zealand and a defeat to Bangladesh. The high point however was Niall O’Brien’s first ODI hundred against New Zealand on May 14th. It seemed possible that Ireland would chase down the target but the loss of O’Brien would signal the beginning of the end of that chase and a 51 run defeat on the day.

New Zealand and Bangladesh played both their matches at Clontarf and shared them one apiece. The caveat being that New Zealand had already clinched the series before the last game on May 24th.

There were sizeable crowds at all the games and the Bangladesh fans brought a particular colour and noise to proceedings, especially during their successful run chase against New Zealand on the final day.

Those two teams go off to the ICC Champions Trophy looking to hit the ground running having acclimatised to a degree in Irish conditions.

Cricket Ireland
Tim Murtagh bowls Alex Hales at Lord’s during the historic ODI ((c)INPHO/Andrew Fosker)
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