An Irishman's Diary

A while ago in this space I confessed to being indifferent to hurling, even though I knew this was a crime under the Offences…

A while ago in this space I confessed to being indifferent to hurling, even though I knew this was a crime under the Offences Against the Nation Act (Section 4), writes Frank McNally.

Since then I have been undergoing court-ordered counselling sessions, with some success. I sat through the entire All-Ireland final in September, voluntarily. And if I wasn't exactly in raptures, I was at the nearest Ryanair-approved airport, from which raptures was only a 90-minute bus journey.

As part of the group therapy programme, however, I now have a further - even more shameful - confession to make. Which is that, in September 2005, when the hurling final threatened to clash with the climax of the epic Ashes series between England and Australia, I felt seriously conflicted.

Thanks to my upbringing in Ireland's south Border region, the coincidence of the two events presented a stark choice. There was this completely foreign game, on the one hand. And on the other, there was cricket. The dilemma was resolved, mercifully, when rain stopped play at the Oval on Sunday before I had to make a decision. But if it hadn't, I cannot honestly say - so help me, God - that the hurling would have prevailed.

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In the event, I listened to Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh's radio commentary from Croke Park, because the game also coincided with a family holiday in Normandy, where the RTÉ signal was strong.

It was a surprisingly enjoyable experience. What the hurling final lacked in drama (I hadn't yet faced up to my problem at that time and was still pretending to be moved by our national game) was more than offset by the tension between Ó Muircheartaigh and the ultra-chic French seaside resort of Deauville.

As the game reached its climax (in the beach-front car-park), locals turned their heads in wonderment at the strange sounds emanating from my open window. Never mind the clash of the ash. This was a clash of civilisations.

It was also while driving around France that I experienced the fourth and fifth tests of that gripping Ashes series. I love cricket on the radio, and not just because I live in hope of one day hearing a line like the one attributed to the late Brian Johnston during a match in which England's Peter Willey faced the bowling of the West Indies' Michael Holding.

Punctuation is not always audible. So when Johnston said (allegedly) "we welcome World Service listeners to the Oval, where the bowler's Holding, the batsman's Willey", it created the sort of frisson rare in cricket. That's if he really did say it: no recording exists and there's still some debate on the subject.

Even when it isn't hitting such heights, BBC test-match cricket coverage is radio at its best. Although the 2005 Ashes could have been scripted by the station's drama department, such excitement is entirely optional. The hired voices are experts at talking about nothing, and for long stretches of most cricket matches, nothing is what happens. It's a like a Beckett play, with a more optimistic message about the human condition.

Cricket is the also the perfect accompaniment to driving in France, adding interest to the boringly perfect French roads, but not so much interest as to distract you on a roundabout. As a bonus, if the car itself hasn't already achieved this, the cricket is guaranteed to send your kids to sleep. And because the game goes on all day, you can dip in and out - spending, say, three hours on the beach without missing anything.

But enjoyable as listening to cricket during the day is, it really comes into its own at night. That's why I really love the quadrennial Ashes series in Australia, the latest instalment of which began at 1am today. There is just nothing so soothing as going to bed with the radio on low, relaying cricket from the other side of the planet.

It won't deprive you of sleep (unless you're English). But ideally, you should wake up several times during the night, just long enough to register that the score has moved on to 194 for 2, or that play has stopped for tea.

You don't have to set the alarm. The fall of wickets acts like a snooze button, creating little spikes in the commentary noise levels, sufficient to stir you. You clock the score, enjoy fleetingly the thought of the drama down under, and then drift back into blissful unconsciousness.

Any sleep disturbance is offset, I find, by the benefits of vicarious exposure to the Australian summer. Night cricket works like a light-box, countering the effects of the grim northern winter. You wake in the morning feeling tanned and energised by the sunshine of Brisbane or Perth, and experiencing a strange craving for Vegemite on toast.

I feel I've shared a lot with the group here, and now it's somebody else's turn to talk. But before I finish, I should mention that there is a sound patriotic reason to follow the Ashes this time. England has been the United Nations of cricket teams in recent years, fielding South Africans and Australians and Indian players. Now, finally, it has an Irishman too.

Not only that, but Ed Joyce is from greater Dublin. OK, Bray to be exact. But whether you think of Bray as being in Dublin or Wicklow, you have to admit one thing. You'd never see anyone from either of those counties in an All-Ireland hurling final.