Sport

‘Fields of Athenry’ stumps them at Home of Cricket

TV VIEW: Cricketers leave Sky with hours to fill while Premier League yawns on

At Lord’s: Ireland’s William Porterfield is bowled out for 82 runs by England’s Mark Wood. Photograph: INPHO/Andrew Fosker

Mary Hannigan's face
Mary Hannigan
Sun May 7 2017 - 20:50

It was when William Porterfield hit that six to take Ireland's score to 220-6 that a rather plaintive rendition of the Fields of Athenry began to fill the Lord's air, the vocalist possibly having enjoyed a libation or 16 in the summer sun.

You’d guess it was the first time the members in the Pavilion were serenaded with a tune about a wretched soul being shipped to Botany Bay simply for pinching some of Charles Trevelyan’s corn, so if anything was achieved by Ireland’s visit to the Home of Cricket it was the lads being given a history lesson.

For a brief moment, though, when Porterfield was doing this thing, on Sky Kyle McCallan went all tingly. “Can we dream? Can we dare to dream?!” And with that Porterfield was bowled, another couple of wickets fell swiftly, and we were then relying on last-man-in Peter Chase transmuting in to Garfield Sobers as we chased 98 runs in a handful of overs – when, Nasser Hussain told us, his batting average in his 14 previous matches was 1.67. A wild-goose Chase, then.

It was a whole heap better than Friday, though, when Sky was left to fill hours upon hours of air time after the first of the One-Day Internationals was over by lunch, Adil Rashid googly-ing our boys in to oblivion.

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“This match was due to end at 6.45, we’re four hours early – done and dusted, start the car!” And with that David “Bumble” Lloyd high-horsed it out of Bristol, leaving Nasser and Kyle to fill the entire afternoon with chat about the state of Irish cricket.

“It’s hard not to be dejected, there’s no point buttering it up – it was dismal,” said a decidedly downcast Kyle of the day’s showing, Nasser having to plead with him not to give way to despair. Come Sunday, though, Kyle was feeling a little better after the boys “made a conscious decision to have a go, they weren’t going to die wondering”. But then Nasser described the display as “no better than decent”, which put Kyle back in a slump and calling for fresh blood to be introduced to the team.

Fresh blood

Introducing fresh blood is, of course, all very well, but if you introduce too much of it at the one time you could end up with a “deer in headlights” problem on the big occasion, the lack of experience proving fatal.

“We’re missing eight or nine or whatever,” Cork manager Ephie Fitzgerald told TG4’s Brian Tyres, half his team having never played in a National League final before. “But yerra, every game’s a challenge, hopefully they’ll be able to stand up to it.”

And with that Cork beat Donegal by a point to win their fifth League title in a row, to add to their 11 All-Irelands in 12 years. The conveyor belt of talent is interminable.

It was a sizzler of a game, played in conditions of a similar temperature. “But,” said player of the match Orla Finn, “it was the same for everyone.”

Meanwhile, Jurgen Klopp: “I know nobody wants to hear it, but I’m brave enough to say it – the pitch was really dry.”

It wasn’t, Orla and ourselves would have assumed, any less parched for Southampton in the course of their scoreless draw at Anfield.

Sky and BT are putting a brave face on it, but with a fortnight still to go there’s a distinct lack of Premier League bum-squeaking, Spurs’ title surrender on Friday night meaning the only fiercely contested battle left is the one to avoid finishing fourth. On that front, both Liverpool and Manchester United had another good day in their efforts to give a wide berth to qualifying for next season’s Champions League, picking up just a point between them on Sunday.

Granted, there’s also a fiercely contested relegation issue to be decided, whether Hull or Swansea (or Crystal Palace if their roof caves in) go down, and Phil Babb, who looks younger now than he did back in the day, was given the honour by Sky on Saturday of sitting all the way through the clash of Hull and Sunderland and finding the words to describe it.

He gave it his best, although he struggled to conceal his desolation when Hayley McQueen told us he’d be back at 8.30 for a replay of the entire game. All 90 minutes-plus added time of it.

At last, the sound of a squeaky bum. Phil’s, that is. He had the look of a man who’d have preferred to be shipped to Botany Bay.

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