O’Brien keeps at mind games for Zimbabwe opener
As the Irish team’s wicketkeeper and one of their top batsmen, the Northamptonshire player will be centre-stage on our screens for hours on end against Zimbabwe tomorrow and again against Pakistan on St Patrick’s Day.
Thanks to the all-encompassing reach of technology, we will be hearing a lot from him too. Wicketkeepers spend as much time talking as they do fielding, and O’Brien is more vocal than most.
What we probably won’t hear is the juicy stuff. The sledging.
The Australians are legendary for it but O’Brien is expert enough to have gotten under the skin of a certain Brian Charles Lara when Ireland played the West Indies in Stormont in 2004.
He will be meeting Lara again on Friday week and his personal brand of psychological warfare will be tested out on other cricketing notables like Inzamam-Ul-Haq and Shahid Afridi this weekend.
“You try to get in the batsman’s ear, which I tend to do quite well,” laughs O’Brien. “I am quite vocal. Cricket is a very psychological game, especially one-day cricket where it is easier to build pressure on the batsman. It’s part and parcel of the game. There are some players who like a friendly atmosphere when they come out to bat. They like to talk to you, others will feed off the quiet time. That’s when you need to get stuck in.”
Like Eoin Morgan, O’Brien has made no secret of the fact that the tournament, big as it is, could be a launching pad for him into an England set-up in which Ed Joyce has already found his niche.
Such ambition doesn’t disguise what playing for Ireland in their first World Cup means to O’Brien, especially when his younger brother, Kevin, will also be playing at Sabina Park in Jamaica.
The younger O’Brien only made his senior debut last year, but a two-year stint on the staff at Lord’s with the MCC Young Cricketers helped him cope with the steep incline at the top level.
“Kevin’s played brilliantly. I’ve been in England since 2002 so I haven’t really seen him play that much. To see him play as well as he did in the World Cricket League in Kenya was brilliant.
“He’s made a place in the team his own now with his batting, and his bowling is coming on too. He will have an important role with bat and ball.”
For the O’Briens, the family cricket connection goes much deeper. Their father, Brendan, is a former Irish captain and their brothers — Paul, Gerard and Conor — have all lined out for the Railway Union club in Dublin. Brendan and his wife, Camilla, will be in Kingston for the tournament, as will their daughter, Ciara, who has been capped more than 100 times for Ireland in hockey.
“All the family have always been involved in the Railway Union club. I was no different. I was down there playing as soon as I was able to stand up and hit or throw a ball. Cricket in the summer, hockey in the winter,” he said.
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