Over By Over and Over Again

This is what gets me through most days. Well, when there's play that is. Such a simple principle, and yet so enjoyable. I used to watch a lot of cricket when I was young, during those long, grey-skied, rain-splashed summers spent pining for the outdoors, or guzzling a mug of Bovril after spending two hours getting hammered in KitKat Tennis. The BBC had it then, or Channel 4 maybe. The Windies were my favourites then, although they seem to have lost some of their style and panache in recent years. The twin towers of Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh charging in and spearing red leather into hard dirt past stout willow. The young ebullient Brian Lara smashing run after run on his way to immortality. All long-since faded now.

Irish people have problems with cricket. It's so very English. It's boring. It takes five days to play. Those reasons are all part of why I love it. I can think of no better activity than spending five days in a park, whiling away the hours, while the white-clad warriors play their game of life and death and a series of numbers tick along on a big black board - something to keep an eye on. Even Americans, after their fashion, know the joys of this. Their own version of bat and ball is something they savour during the summer months. It pains me that this most beautiful and leisurely of sports is so derided in our land. Even our World Cup Heroes gained little recognition, and even less respect.

During that World Cup I have a right old time of it trying to find pubs and places to watch it in. The rockers downstairs in The Neptune had a good laugh at my expense as we played Zimbabwe. By the end though, I had the nuances and skills explained to them, along with the basic rules, and as it reached the finale, where we eventually drew, they were cheering along with me. We won a match then, against Pakistan, and were through to the second round - that's better than what our much-vaunted egg-chasers managed in their last outing on the world stage. I didn't manage to see that game, being in Sweden at the time didn't help.

In the second round we had a game against the old enemy, England. Now, being a good Irishman, I'm always up for a crack at the Sasanach, and I presumed that, no matter the sport, everyone else on this isle would have been too. How wrong I was. First there was the trouble of getting them to turn over from Sky News' rolling inanity in Kennedy's of Westland Row. This was at about 4 pm on a Friday, when surely nothing fantastic was about to happen. Then, as we toiled in the sun against our superior opponents, the channels were changed, on all 5 screens, so that we could all watch Munster play European Cup rugby. I asked for just one screen to be changed back, so we could at least keep an eye on Trent and the boys. I was told, in no uncertain terms, that Kennedy's was an Irish rugby pub, and wouldn't be showing such foreign filth for the duration of the match. I bit my loosened tongue and wandered off in search of a more amicable location.

Ireland's oldest cricket club can be found in the Pav, Trinity, however, they too had fallen foul of the great Heineken curse. I was left with no choice but to retire homewards, refreshing the over-by-over on my phone as I went, and streaming the game online when I got home. We were well beaten, but only by virtue of a man named Collingwood's stones. His iron will got England home that day, but I sometimes wonder, if the whole country had gone Cricket mad, if we had all decided to go on the lash and really get behind the team, if the players had known that we were gone bananas and right behind them, would things have been a little different? Would they have tried just that little bit harder and got one over them?

We play England in Belfast later this year. Another crack at them just after they finish playing for the Ashes against Australia. If the Aussies have hammered them, we might have a chance of causing an upset. Maybe if they do, the public will start to realise that we have a team on the cusp of joining the world's elite. It's important to be up there in world sport, to show a winning mentality. It engenders a national pride and a culture of success, something that is sorely needed these days. I'll be there, supping on a flagon and scribbling terrible poetry as we bat and bowl for our lives. But today, let's cheer for the Windies as they wrap up their first series win of the milennium over their, and our, old masters.