...the Ireland A team played a full part in an epic finish going down agonizingly to a last ball six to a spirited MCC team.
I have to say I was as surprised as anyone that the team was entirely from the north, but perhaps even more surprised at the barbs it drew out from a few website correspondents. Assuming Phil Simmons and his three regional selectors picked the team, surely they are best placed to evaluate who are in their thoughts and who they want to see in this type of fixture? Let’s be honest, the MCC fixture is one of the few ‘trial’ fixtures we have these days in the absence of an interprovincial series, so it has a lot of value despite the nonsense written by its critics. It was also ironic that there should be criticism for omitting some of the current Ireland squad when the selectors were alsocriticised not so long ago for selecting those same players to play against the Bangladesh A team. At the time it was ‘suggested’ that it would be better to have a look at fringe players!
How can selectors win?
Obviously there were fewer options when the selectors picked this team because of the full international and Under 19 matches going on at the same time, so inevitably there was going to be a few surprises. But tolambast the players picked because of their regional origins was very unfair.
Players like Ryan Haire and David Kennedy are as good as any batsmen playing in Irish club cricket these days, and have suffered more than anyone from misplaced selections in the past. Gavin McKenna has just broken into the full Ireland squad and his representative cricket pedigree is solid. 
Andrew Riddles has had an outstanding season in North West cricket, while young Chris Dougherty and David Rankin are fine prospects with many excellent performances already on their impressive CVs. Rory McCann is a competent bat and was acknowledged as the wicket-keeping replacement for Fintan McAllister, so presumably there’s no criticism of his selection?
And that leaves three players from the high-flying Civil Service North team and the talented Neil Gill from Muckamore. Neil has been well promoted by his supporters in the past, so what better opportunity than to see him perform for the A team? The same could be said for the promising Alan Coulter, who has been taking wickets regularly in NCU club cricket. OK, perhaps these are names that our Dublin correspondents don’t see regularly, but I doubt if many of them attend club matches in the north so how would they expect to know them? Certainly if there was interpro cricket these players would be in the teams.
That leaves two very talented qualified Kiwis in Reagan West and Nigel Jones, and I doubt if anyone connected with NCU cricket would question their prowess and right to be selected. These guys are in top form and two big reasons why CSN are doing so well this season.
On the back of these comments, it would be all too easy to look at performances in the match and be vindicated, but this issue is not about justification after the event, it is about justification before the event.
Unfortunately the northern nature of the team brought out old partisan arguments, but we have to assume that Cricket Ireland has moved a long way since the 1980s, even if some of our correspondents can’t see the bigger picture. Picking nine northerners and two Kiwis hardly sounds like a sell-out to Leinster and Munster cricket, and for my old friend Ger Siggins to call it a C team was unworthy of someone who knows his cricket much better than that. We have to accept that selectors are entitled to make their own decisions, even if we feel we know better!
After all, that’s why they were appointed in the first place.
CLARENCE HILES
EDITOR
