THE romantic tale of Ireland’s Cricket World Cup was given a controversial twist on Friday when Gary Wilson was the victim of a disgraceful umpiring decision by Sri Lankan Asoka de Silva.
Watching Wilson remonstrate with an official provoked mixed feelings but there was certainly regret that a member of this team should break one of the cardinal rules of cricket.
It’s not necessary to delve too deeply into the leg before wicket law or the video review protocol to appreciate Wilson’s distress. In short, when De Silva was seen to have got his initial decision wrong, he bailed himself out on a technicality — that the batsman had ‘not played a stroke’. It’s true that Wilson’s bat did get stuck behind his front pad but this was not deliberate. He was past 50 and well set. With 77 runs required off 50 balls why would he wilfully not play a shot?
This recalled the unfavourable refereeing calls against Argentina and Italy, two emerging rugby nations who have apparently suffered over the years for not being part of the golden circle of eight ‘founder nations’.
For it wouldn’t be in the financial interests of the International Cricket Council (ICC) were Ireland to qualify for the quarter-finals. Half-empty stadiums make for a significant reduction in advertising revenues. In some quarters, ‘the Irish’ were seen to have ‘devalued’ the World Cup by qualifying for the Super Eights in 2007.
Advertisement
If you judge the quality of a World Cup by the number of its potential winners, then cricket has a superior product to rugby. But if the tournament is about globalising the sport’s appeal, then it needs upsets like rugby needs them.
The ICC number-crunchers can relax, however. With games against South Africa (Tuesday) and Holland (Friday) in Kolkata remaining, only a bizarre set of circumstances will allow Ireland to qualify this time. The West Indies will feel a sense of relief, too, for they experienced periods of intense discomfort in both innings of Friday’s game.
Viewers will still be wondering why William Porterfield bowled his spinners for a total of five overs against batsmen who generally prefer pace on the ball. And Porterfield himself must be looking back and wondering at his decision to withdraw George Dockrell from the attack just because the West Indies opted for a batting powerplay.
Kieron Pollard, the batsman who would rescue their innings from mediocrity, had only just arrived at the wicket. Dockrell had just showed his class by luring Ramnaresh Sarwan into a false stroke, thus adding the Guyanian to a handy list of victims including Andrew Strauss, Sachin Tendulkar and MS Dhoni. Seeing as the powerplay went for 55 anyway, maybe it would have been worth risking the 18-year-old against Pollard before he was set.
Porterfield has been an excellent on-field captain, however. Ireland will be angry at themselves for making mistakes in the field on Friday but they support each other.
Advertisement
They still lack one more batsman of genuine class. The irony was that as we watched them chase the West Indies total, on the other channel Eoin Morgan was attempting to rescue England’s innings with a neat 63.
But here’s the thing. In August, Ireland play England in Clontarf and the teams will meet as equals. This won’t seem much of a consolation now but it does put Ireland’s performances into context.