Articles

Tournament Preview

THE Irish Cricket Union finally get their place on the European stage over the next week when the fourth European Championships are staged in Northern Ireland. The 12-team, two-division tournament begins tomorrow.

Winners of the inaugural tournament in Denmark in 1996, Ireland have slipped down the rankings since then, having to make do with a fourth place finish on the mats in Holland in 1998 and in Scotland two years ago.

The Dutch are still the only host winners of the competition and the 2003 World Cup finalists - after winning the ICC Trophy in Canada last summer - are favourites to complete a hat-trick of European Championships next Thursday night. They have six members of the team that won the trophy in 2000 and as they were also around last year in Toronto, the heart of the squad, led so superbly by Roland Lefebvre, remains intact. In fact then captain Tim de Leede(left), Klaas-Jan van Noortwijk, Luuk van Troost, Zulfiqar Ahmed and wicket-keeper Reinout Scholte, who are all in Belfast, played in the team that lost to Ireland in the 1996 Euro final. Feiko Kloppenburg also played on home soil four years ago and there is no doubt that the new faces, playing for places in the World Cup finals, will make up a formidable unit.

Scotland, for so long Ireland's nemesis in one-day cricket - and not just in the European Championships when they won back to back games four years ago - have rung the changes since their third place final defeat by Canada at the ICC Trophy last July. Many are enforced with the retirements of long serving openers Bruce Patterson and Iain Philip and popular skipper George Salmond. He has been replaced by Craig Wright but only Greig Williamson (left), Dougie Lockhart, Colin Smith and Asim Butt, a late call-up for this tournament, faced Ireland in Linlithgow two years ago although Neil Macrae, in this year's 14-man squad, opened the batting against Ireland at the Emerging Nations Tournament in Harare three months earlier. Of the rest, only Kevin Thomson, in the 1997 ICC Trophy third-place play-off, and Fraser Watts, in Canada last year, have faced Ireland before in a senior interntional although of the six others, Neil McCallum and Steven Gilmour played against Ireland A in the European Development Cup in Holland last year.

Denmark have plenty of familiar names in their squad, and six survive from the last European Championships. Coach Ole Mortensen may have moved on but Morten Hedegaard is still the captain and Aftab Ahmed (left), whose unbeaten 86 proved the start of Ireland's downfall in Canada last year, is an Ireland visitor, trying to repeat his heroics in Toronto. Opening bowler Thomas Hansen, Carsten Pedersen, Soren Vestergaard, Freddy Klokker and leg spinner Bobby Chawla will be other familiar faces to the more experienced Ireland players although four of those bowlers were on the receiving end of Andrew White's bat when he scored a century in his third international in Uddingston. Denmark finished top of Ireland's group in Canada but lost all four games in the Super League.

The English amateur side have appeared under many guises, this time they are known as ECB England, but captain Steve Foster is a faithful servant and the top order batsman has enjoyed plenty of success against Ireland down the years. With so many players to choose from, however, no-one is ever sure of ECB England's strength until they turn up. Apart from the captain, only Richard Howitt, Chris Mole and Marcus Sharp can make a second successive appearance against Ireland. In Holland, the English actually lost to Italy, after finishing bottom of the table, yet two years later finished runners up to the Dutch. Ireland are fortunate that they do not have to play them until the last day, at Waringstown.

No fewer than eight of the Italian squad were in Scotland two years ago. They beat Denmark by nine runs to condemn the Danes to bottom place then and their target again this year will be to win one match. They face Ireland at Comber on Monday and the hosts will be hoping it is not them.

Gibraltar, always a popular touring side, came from last place in Holland to win Division Two in Scotland and it will be interesting to see if they have maintained, or even bettered, that standard. Their game against Germany - runners-up two years ago - at Bready on Tuesday, could be the league decider. However, at the last tournament, France, Portugal and Israel all won two more games than Gibraltar did four years ago so it could be Monday before a pattern emerges in this division.

The newcomers to the Championship are Austria - replacing Greece who failed to win a match in Scotland - and although the country does not enjoy a long cricketing history, the home-bred talent has now come through to outshine many of their ex-pat team-mates. The first chance to see them is at Sandy Bay, Larne, tomorrow when they face Israel.

The Larne ground is one of 22 being used for the 30 games - six per day for five days - with Sunday and Wednesday pencilled in as rain days. Stormont, the Province's premier ground now, finally stages its first international when Ireland face Denmark on Saturday and Holland and Scotland, the top two ranked teams, meet in their last match there next Thursday. Cliftonville, Lurgan, Waringstown, North Down, Instonians, Lisburn and Muckamore are the other clubs hosting two games.

Seven of the competing countries have supplied umpires and Colin Harvey, one of the local umpires at the last ICC Trophy in Canada, will also be officiating alongside nine home umpires, so neutrality is guaranteed. It is certain to be the biggest cricket event staged in Ireland - so far - and if the months of preparation by the organisers, under tournament director Richard Johnson, is rewarded then these should be the best ever European Championships. All we need is for the weather to shine on Northern Ireland.