An Irish View

Points have been hard to come by in this tournament and, as I write, there is a feeling of satisfaction in the camp - well for some at least, eh Lennie! Well, whatever she's on, can the rest of us have some please? - 54 runs off 68 balls is a fair achievement of which she (or Stevie) can be proud. Well done also to Beggsy for hitting 66 runs and winning Player of the Match award - marvellous, NZ$200 in the kitty!

Allegedly, they say the beer always tastes sweeter with a victory in the bag and, sure enough, we finally celebrated our two points with fellow teams, supporters and revellers in The Bog with bar manager Brendan laying on a top spread for both teams.

To the delight and surprise of the local crowd and roars of "Who let the Irish out?", a big night was had featuring many inpromptu party pieces with the Irish, in true party form, hitting the heights of Fields of Athenry together with many other notable vignets coming from a reluctant (or shy?) "Shirley Bassey", passionate "Proclaimers" and gorgeous "Glen Campbell"... roll on the big night on Saturday! (CricInfo party organisers take note, it would be worth trebling the "Fanta" orders - methinks the players will have a large thirst having been a couple of weeks on the dry - well ish!]

Indeed, I've never seen nor heard so many Kiwis from this beautiful city sing along word-for-word to the majority of Irish folksongs - frightening, given that I haven't a clue about most of them! However, it gives me a warm feeling in my heart to know that wherever we go in the world, we can always get a party into full swing.

It would be fair to say that if we showed as much talent and commitment on the pitch as to performing on stage, methinks we would be topping the charts at this tournament! Alas, like many other teams close to the homeland, it wasn't to be and the semi-finals are out of reach. In fact, it looks like we now have to go into a pre-qualifying stage before the next world cup in 2004.

Hey ho, give us another couple of years in which to build on existing talent, find a few more youthful bodies with bionic arms & legs to scamper the outfield, and you'll see what we're really capable of. So that means our future potentially lies in the hands of Beggsy, Shillers, Medser and Joycie - now there's a challenge! Girls, get your heads around this fantastic game of cunning and visualise your potential. Here ends my "message in a bottle".

With points in the bag and having thoroughly quenched our thirst, we headed back to base camp in Lincoln and I gave thought to those who have supported my cricketing cause over the years. It has been a career of many friendships made and, with wry smile and tears in my eyes, I shall be sad to let it go but every dog has its day and this one is looking forward to settling down in front of a real Scottish log fire and going with the flow...