A Cricketing Celebration Of Cultural Diversity

 

 

Ashes 2013

 

A day to celebrate cultural diversity

 

September 4^th

 
 

[09:00 CEST] This was a day to celebrate cultural diversity. A player dubbed “The Lambeth Lara” by Middlesex fans, born in that district of south London, but with Irish grandparents, who opened the bowling with another player who hails from Wollongong, was trumped by a Londoner of Indian descent and a lad from Dublin playing on his home ground against his former team. They were joined by an exciting young player from Zimbabwe who has made his home in Yorkshire, a British citizen by birth who has chosen to defect from Ireland to England, a player with Caribbean roots and a South African with a Danish name who plays for Ireland and a fair number of English and Irish natives representing the country that they love.

If was definitely a bad day to the modern day racists who want to ban international mobility, who think that you cannot be a citizen of a country if you were not born there, even if you come from one of the most famous English cricketing families of all and who cannot stand the thought of non-white players choosing to play for England instead of following their racial heritage (this last is a modern variant on a detestable policy that we thought had disappeared from sport and from life in general in 1991). The fact that Ireland’s most successful bowler had already represented England at U19 level will be ignored in the criticism of England giving a cap to someone who has represented Zimbabwe at U19 level. The game was a living demonstration of the ethnic and cultural diversity that the British Isles offer, something that we are, apparently, to be ashamed of when reflected in our sport.

After 15 overs England were 48-4, chasing 270. Carberry, Wright and Balance had all fallen cheaply. With 4 overs to go in their innings, Ireland had been 229-7 and struggling to reach 250. Trent Johnson and Max Sorenson added 40 in 25 balls and then left things to the Lambeth Lara to show what he could do with the ball. This period of 19 overs in the middle of the match was one of total Irish domination that promised a huge humiliation for England.

Overlooked by England because he has to strain to reach 80mph (there is a joke that, when he bowls a bouncer, the umpires call for drinks while the batsman waits for the ball to arrive), Tim Murtagh showed that guile has its place in cricket. Seeing Murtagh create such problems, Irish captain Will Porterfield made the strategic error of bowling him straight out, hoping to de-rail the England challenge early. It would have worked had one more wicket fallen but, with Murtagh out of the attack for good after 19 overs of the England innings, Ravi Bopara and Eoin Morgan took a liking to the second and third string bowlers. George Dockrell went for 73 in 10 overs, Kevin O’Brien for 41 off 4, John Mooney for 27 off 3, Paul Stirling for 36 off 5 and, suddenly, the chase looked ridiculously easy. Normally you say “double the total after 30 overs” to get an idea of what the final score will be: 129-4 suggested that England would fall short; in fact, they won with 7 overs to spare,  as 145 runs came from the next 13 overs. With no one to come back and exert control, the game just raced away from Ireland.

Both batsmen had something to prove. Ravi Bopara regularly falls foul of the fans despite a more than respectable record for England overall in limited overs cricket and a superb recent record. Many fans blamed him unfairly for England’s defeat in the Champions Trophy Final. Eoin Morgan had not scored an international 50 for more than 20 innings and, playing so little domestic cricket to showcase his talents (and with such limited returns recently), he was in very real danger of losing his place. They came out in a major crisis and, first, stabilised the innings, before going on the attack. Bopara’s 101 off 75 balls started slowly, but was brutal as the bowling wilted. His last 5 balls went: 4 4 6 4 1 as England scored 51 from the last 3 overs of the innings. Eoin Morgan batted like the Morgan who had demanded a run in the Test side, rather than the sad imitation who had only reached 40 once and had 5 single-figure scores in his last 11 innings in all cricket.

Whereas Bopara had smashed 42 from the last 18 balls that he had faced, Morgan was more stylish and was content to limit himself to 21 off his last 12 balls, allowing his partner to reach a deserved century.

It was a fine game of cricket. No one will pretend that the English performance was not pretty ordinary for much of the game. The Irish defence of 270 was the classic “crust defence” – break through the hard shell and what is behind it does not resist much – but both sides have reasons to be pleased too.

Although the Irish party had gone flat, in all other senses it was a triumph for them. They premiered their new 10000-seat ground, which was full and they gave England a real test while, just across the Irish Sea, Scotland were crashing to one of the heaviest ODI defeats in the history of the format, showing the huge gulf in class between the two old celtic rivals. Australia were ruthless, running up 362-3 after a very slow start and winning by 200 runs, despite some late defiance by the Scots.

One hopes that the ICC were watching. Ireland have a set-up that is a lot more professional than several of the Test sides that are reluctant to let them join the top table, however much they deserve to.