The century of the year

SPORT REVIEW 2011:It was the unlikeliest underdog triumph of the sporting calendar – Kevin O'Brien inspiring the Irish team to a famous victory against England at the Cricket World Cup

THERE WERE plenty of stories that the CNN India news editor could have led with on the morning of March 3rd this year. The 18,000 Indian citizens trapped in Libya perhaps, or those captured by pirates off the coast of Somalia. Maybe the launch of the new iPad or the ongoing controversy surrounding the awarding of mobile phone licences in the country.

Not a bit of it, there was only one headline story in town and indeed across the nation of 1.2 billion on the Thursday news bulletins – and it all revolved around a 26-year-old Irish cricketer from Sandymount in Dublin with an outrageous pink and white hairdo.

The night before at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore, Kevin O’Brien had set a new World Cup record for the quickest century in the competition’s history in a victory over England, a result that almost nine months on still beggars belief.

Having conceded 327 runs to England in their innings, Ireland were struggling at 111 for five in the 25th over when Gary Wilson was trapped leg-before by Graeme Swann.

What unfolded over the next two hours must rank as one of the greatest comebacks in cricketing history, and one that fascinated both the Indian public and a huge amount of Irish people that wouldn’t care a jot about the sport from one end of the year to the next.

Many back in Ireland tuned in to see the latter stages of O’Brien’s innings as he clubbed the England bowling attack to all parts of the stadium, hitting six sixes and bringing up his 100 off just 50 deliveries before departing for 113 with just 11 runs required for victory.

John Mooney and Trent Johnston proceeded to get Ireland over the line in as calm a fashion as was possible in the circumstances, getting there with five balls to spare to set off wild scenes in Bangalore among the players, coaching staff and the couple of hundred Irish supporters that had made the trip. The normal reserve of the press box went out the window to boot.

What strikes you about O’Brien’s recollection of the most famous night in Irish cricket history is just how relaxed he was in the circumstances, but also how much he and the rest of the Irish squad believe the World Cup was a missed opportunity in how they failed to really push on from the result to make the quarter-finals.

“Looking back, and if you ask any of the guys, I think we missed a trick there,” says O’Brien. “As it turned out, if we had have won one more game, we would have qualified.” Whatever high the players and supporters were on after the World Cup was soon brought crashing down around them when news broke that the International Cricket Council (ICC) were going to limit the 2015 World Cup to just the 10 full members.

It was a decision that was to unite those outside the top table of the world game into a formidable lobby group, with Cricket Ireland chief executive Warren Deutrom in the vanguard of making the case for the so-called “minnows”.

In the end, and to the surprise of many in the game, the ICC restored the event to a 14-team tournament, opening up two forms of qualification for the event in Australia and New Zealand, with two places coming through a league qualification series and two coming from a final qualifying tournament.

With four wins out of four so far in the league section, Ireland ended the cricket season with a firm foundation to get back to where they believe they belong. A small cricketing nation in many respects maybe, but one with major ambitions.