12/03/24
March 02, 2011
Irish Cricket Team Defeats England in World Cup: In an upset of monumental proportions, the Ireland cricket team defeated the England cricket team by three wickets with five balls remaining in Bangalore today. A Test-playing nation being defeated by an associate nation is rare at best. England is ranked 3rd in the world among one-day international (ODI) playing squads, and had just managed a tie against India, one of the tournament favorites, on Sunday. The achievement is being hailed as a victory to lift the national spirit in Ireland, a country dealing with heavy financial problems and a bailout from the EU.
posted by boredom_08 to other at 02:24 PM - 7 comments
To be honest, while we're always happy to beat the English (no offence England :) ) this victory means nothing to the vast majority of Irish people because it isn't a hugely popular sport over here. Will we say "yay" of course we will, and we'll be happy with the win, and proud of the guys. But lifting the national spirit? I think Enda Kenny is just looking for any happy story.
Still, congrats lads, nice one :)
posted by Fence at 03:13 PM on March 02, 2011
A bit like USA beating England 1-0 at the World Cup in 1950.
posted by dave2007 at 09:01 PM on March 02, 2011
Maybe this is just a precursor of what's going to happen in the next (FIFA) World Cup.
posted by feloniousmonk at 09:57 PM on March 02, 2011
Test Match Sofa audio highlights (poss. NSFW).
It was a fantastic victory. England chucked a lot of pies, dropped a lot of catches, and the pitch was as flat as a fart, but at 111-5, Kevin O'Brien came in and played the innings not only of his life, but several other people's lives. (For Americans wanting conversions, those sixes went over 300ft.)
posted by etagloh at 10:57 PM on March 02, 2011
Fucking stunning. Shows up the absoulte intellectual and moral bankruptcy of the ICC for dropping the minnows from the next World Cup.
posted by rodgerd at 12:49 AM on March 03, 2011
If the associates aren't going to get their chance at the World Cup, then it's hard to know where else in the calendar they'll get it. There's a valid argument that the group stages in the current format are too long, and that the tonkings received by teams like Kenya aren't helpful in bridging the gap, but dropping the minnows isn't the answer.
One suggestion was to have a smaller group of "combined associates" sides -- along the lines of the combined Minor Counties sides that have competed in English domestic cricket -- but then you have the question of team cohesion and identity.
(Canada made things competitive with Pakistan for a while today before Afridi tore through the middle orders. Lots of pretty vicious Hindi-Urdu sledging, too.)
posted by etagloh at 01:14 PM on March 03, 2011
Apologies if anything I said above is completely wrong, I'm not exactly the most well-versed on the topic.