Cricket/ Ireland v Surrey: National coach Adrian Birrell says he is disappointed with his side's start to this year's C&G Trophy but is still confident they can consistently trouble teams at this level.
Tomorrow Ireland take on Surrey in Stormont, a side they beat in this competition two years ago but one packed with talent and experience.
"Despite beating Gloucestershire a couple of weeks ago, we have had a pretty disappointing tournament so far," said Birrell. "One win from four is not enough. We could have beaten Glamorgan but in the other two games we were well beaten (by eight wickets to Hampshire and Essex)," he said.
To be fair though, they have been on the losing side of the toss in all four matches and endured the worst of the conditions on each occasion. So the first thing skipper Trent Johnston needs to get right tomorrow is the flip of the coin. This is a high-class Surrey team and Ireland will be under pressure no matter what they do. "Surrey have a really good team from one to 11 and it's not going to be easy for us but we are not easy to play against either," said Birrell.
One player who knows that more than most is veteran batsman and former England Test player Mark Ramprakash. He was on the losing Surrey team two years ago and also the Middlesex side beaten by Mike Hendrick's Ireland in 1997's B&H Cup. He won't want to make it a hat-trick. With the likes of Mark Butcher, Ricky Clarke, Azhar Mahmood and Ian Salisbury in the Surrey line-up, Ireland will certainly be underdogs.
Johnston's broken finger sustained in the Gloucestershire match is still giving him plenty of discomfort but he will play, most likely opening the bowling with John Mooney. There are some Ireland players who have yet to fire like they can so far this season. Dominick Joyce needs to score runs while David Langford-Smith needs to take wickets or else those two places could be up for grabs. With the weekend forecast looking dodgy, expect the Duckworth/Lewis method to be in operation. Play in Stormont tomorrow starts at 10.45am.
Meanwhile, in the domestic game, the DGM 45 Overs League is hotting up and with one round of group matches remaining only defending champions Clontarf are out of contention of a place in the semi-finals after losing their third successive match in the competition on Wednesday.
Today North County entertain Civil Service at Inch, Dublin University need a big win over Merrion at Anglesea Road if they are to progress, Munster Reds travel to Kenure to take on Rush and Railway Union play a resurgent Old Belvedere at Park Avenue.
Tomorrow, Leinster can secure their place as winners of Section C with a win over Pembroke at Sydney Parade while CYM play The Hills in Terenure and Malahide look forward to a home game against Phoenix.
IRELAND (squad): Trent Johnston, John Mooney, Jeremy Bray, Dominick Joyce, Eoin Morgan, Andre Botha, Peter Gillespie, David Langford-Smith, Saqlain Mushtaq, Shahid Afridi, Kyle McCallan, William Porterfield.
SURREY (squad): M Butcher (captain), J Batty, J Benning, M Ramprakash, A Brown, R Clarke, Azhar Mahmood, I Salisbury, T Murtagh, J Dernbach, N Doshi, Mohammad Akram, S Walters.
