Irish Examiner View: Ireland's cricketing success

Defeat of England

Ireland's George Dockrell (centre) celebrates following the dismissal of England batsman Harry Brook during the T20 World Cup Super 12 match at Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne, Australia. Picture: Scott Barbour/PA Wire

Early on Wednesday morning Ireland’s cricketers enjoyed victory over England in the T20 World Cup in Melbourne. 

It’s a measure of Ireland’s cricketing success in recent years that although the win was warmly welcomed and celebrated, it wasn’t the shock it might once have been. It’s Ireland’s third win over England since 2011 — a remarkable hat-trick over the nation which invented the game, after all.

Cricket supporters across the Irish Sea, already deflated by this defeat, can surely anticipate further misery when the game is recycled by commentators into state-of-England commentary for the next few years. 

Along with the suicidal vote for Brexit and the short, quizzical reign of Liz Truss, cricketing defeat at the hands of Ireland will surely be held up as yet another marker of England’s decline and fall.

The game itself in Melbourne was truncated by rain, thus combining a couple of Irish obsessions — the state of the weather and the delight in defeating England. By coalescing so neatly we were almost able to indulge in a third national obsession, though one of far more recent origin.

At the time of writing, no footage has emerged from the victorious dressing-room, which means we can expect neither rumination nor recrimination about whatever was sung by the winning team.