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IF you haven’t heard much about the crusading, trailblazing Irish cricket team lately, it’s because they have not been up to much.
That is about to change, weather permitting.Rain cast a dark scythe through the second half of last season, obliterating all the more noteworthy fixtures on the international calendar. But if the game were not upheld on this island by some very doughty individuals, it would never have grown like it has.

So here we are on the brink of another season and an attractive, busy fixture list glows up ahead like a beacon for sailors who have lost their way.

England will be here in September, officially opening the new national ground in Malahide. Pakistan have committed to two one-day internationals on Irish soil in May; Bangladesh may yet join Scotland in providing crowds north and south with plenty to go round.

And before all that, the players get to warm up for summer with a taste of off-season Gulf sunshine that has become an annual staple.

John Mooney admits that the season’s competitive entrée against the United Arab Emirates is mouth-watering, especially as the trip to Sharjah includes two games where victory would push Ireland very close to securing another series of days in the sun, at the 2015 World Cup in Australasia.

‘I think everybody’s pretty keen to get back playing. The winter months now are getting to everybody really and there’s only so much going to the gym and hitting balls indoors that you want to do,’ said all-rounder Mooney, one of Ireland’s core contracted players.

‘Everybody’s really keen to get out on that flight, whenever it’s going to be: we haven’t got the details yet but it’s looking like March 1 or 2 and everybody’s really looking forward to playing and practising outdoors.’
Ireland are top of the World Cricket League Championship with three of their seven double-headers still to come; the top two in the table come autumn will qualify automatically for the World Cup, with the other six consigned to the minefield-like qualifier Ireland successfully negotiated to get to the finals in 2007 and 2011.

‘If we can get two wins in the UAE, we’d be probably looking at maybe beating the Dutch and the Scots one game each and I think that would be enough,’ said Mooney, who scored the winning runs against England in the epic 2011 victory in Bangalore.

‘It would be massive [to qualify outright], and not just because you’re avoiding a banana skin and not having to go down to wherever the tournament is played.

‘But just to have that security of being in the tournament, it’ll give us a year and a half to plan and we can start finding out where we’re going to be based, and maybe get some specific practice in the conditions we’re going to be faced with if we do qualify.’

The Balrothery, Fingal man was speaking as Cricket Ireland announced a three-year deal with Toyota Ireland, who will provide a fleet of Avensises and Aurises to help get all of those kit bags from venue to venue.

It is another indicator of the remarkable recession-proofing that the game’s governors have undertaken since insurers RSA swept them off their feet with a title sponsorship that enabled the likes of Mooney to give up their day jobs and become full-time cricketers.

The players know on which side their bread is buttered, and realise how good it would look for RSA, as much as themselves, if they were able to beat a dynastic cricket nation at home for the first time this summer.

So far Bangladesh are the only Test-playing side to have lost on Irish soil, but there may be hope in the identity of the big two visitors slated for this year. Pakistan and England were the red-faced collateral of Irish cricket’s seminal days at the last two World Cups.

Asked if breaking their home duck against superpowers was the main target for the summer, Mooney said: ‘No disrespect to Pakistan, but if we were to beat Pakistan in one of the two games or even if both of the games, it won’t generate anything like the coverage that would happen if we were to beat England in September. ‘But the Pakistan games are first and I think it’s just really important to put in two massive performances.’

This article was reproduced by Jonathan Coates & appeared first in the Irish Daily Mail
You can follow Jonathan on twitter @JonCoates here

Jonathan Coates (Irish Daily Mail)
Going Places: Ireland’s John Mooney © INPHO/Presseye/Rowland White
[211] John Mooney – mooney-john
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