Should be a fun tournament, and a good chance for Ireland to make its mark.

I predict Ireland will qualify for the World Cup easily enough (Top 5 qualify for the West Indies to join 11 official ODI nations), but I think it's about 5/2 to win the tournament.

For the record, I think they'll be joined by USA, Scotland, Namibia and Canada (Denmark, UAE and Holland just to miss out for final 5th spot).

It's a pity they scheduled the matches as they did. Surely playing Group A in NI and Group B in RoI would have been a better bet...then share latter stage games, North and South.

iluvni

Perhaps.

I think the idea behind this system is to make sure both areas get a period of uninterrupted focus - if Irland had played its games at its 'home' ground (i.e. Clontarf for our purposes, though of course they have played elsewhere regularly e.g. sion mills, stormont) there would be a risk that the games in Belfast would be somewhat ignored, or vice versa.

This way Belfast gets a full festival of cricket, then Dublin gets a full festival.

It's probably a toss-up, both ways have pros and cons.

However, living in Belfast, I'm delighted to be able to see Ireland at Stormont in important competition - Everyone down to the Pavillion!

I wonder if other concerns were taken into account - as a Belfast resident I'm not sure trying to hold an international event like this in the city over the 12th week would have been a great idea?

Beach tree,

Suppose that makes sense too, but it's a bit wick that not even one of the games at the business end of the tournament is played up here.

Anyhow, from watching a bit of UAE v Holland yesterday, the cricket will be lively to say the least.

C'mon Ireland.
(what flag will be flying at the Pavilion?)

(lol, stirrer)

Jonny

Without getting into the politics of the Twelth ...

(and I say that as possibly the only person in the country to have played a club championship under-16 match in both Gaelic Fottball and cricket on the same day! (and lost both, ah ... them was the days!)

...as I was saying, I think you probably have a point about the logistics of running such a competition on any major public holiday, particlaurly this one - which is a huge pity in a way, as surely matches on either day (12th or 13th) in the best of all worlds could actually have attracted excellent crowds of people doing something interesting with the day off. Ah well.

Which looks something like this ...

ok?

Sorry : Small flag image here

Just noticed this interesting article on the relationship between cricket and the GAA

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