Third time’s the charm as Ed Joyce targets World Cup runs

If it wasn't for young son Georgiou looking for him to bowl a few more deliveries at the foot of the pavilion steps at Trinity College on Thursday morning it would be easy to still imagine Ed Joyce as the star of the University first XI.

The Bray left-hander has aged well when you realise he made his debut in another century, the precocious left-hander making 60 in a Triple Crown game against Scotland in 1997, an innings that eventually led to a storied career in county cricket which is still flourishing.

Joyce was back at his old stamping ground at College Park yesterday as Cricket Ireland unveiled their playing shirt for the forthcoming World Cup and a sponsorship deal with Tourism Ireland for the tournament in Australia and New Zealand which starts next month.

It will be a third World Cup for 36-year-old Joyce after playing in 2007 for England and returning for Ireland in 2011. The good news is that he’s feeling better than ever on the back of a stunning season as Sussex captain that saw him score more than 2,000 runs in all competitions, including 1,501 first-class runs and eight centuries.

Niggling problems

Joyce missed out on Ireland’s acclimatisation tour to Australia and New Zealand, and the tour to Dubai, in a bid to rest some niggling problems. Foremost of these is a degenerative hip condition, but he admits to feeling ready for the gruelling schedule that a World Cup brings – even if he’s surprised himself that he’s made it to number three.

“The body has been really good the last year or two, I know my body a lot better now and I know what I can and cannot do and I know what I need to do to get ready for games,” admits Joyce.

“That’s not to say it won’t go kaput at some stage but I never would have thought at the last World Cup that I would play another. I did say that to reporters, that it would be my last World Cup, and I probably feel better before this one than the last one, which is obviously a good sign.”

A good sign for Ireland for sure and Joyce looks like a man with some goals set in adding to his already rich international legacy in a green shirt. Indeed so good was his form last summer that England supporters, unaware of his return to the country of his birth, were making a case for his England recall.

Joyce received special dispensation to return for the 2011 World Cup, but failed to really light up the tournament, although his knock of 32 against England was when the heat was really on before the latter heroics of Kevin O'Brien and Alex Cusack in that famous upset.

Unfinished business

The 44-run defeat to the West Indies in Chandigarh was the one that ended hopes of Ireland progressing to the quarter-finals in 2011 and Joyce left some unfinished business that day when he fell for 84 to set off a collapse after Ireland looked well set to chase down a target of 276.

It’s a West Indies team that look to be in disarray ahead of the tournament that Ireland face first on February 16th at Nelson in New Zealand and Joyce knows that if an opportunity presents itself it must be taken this time around.

“We really should have won that game. We were in a really good position and it was one of those interesting ones, I think if that had been a county game we would have cruised to victory, it’s just that extra pressure probably told. I’d like to think that if that happened again, we’d get across the line,” says Joyce.

“You know West Indies cricket is in a little bit of turmoil at the moment, they’ve got a few players who they haven’t selected who we’re probably happy they haven’t selected. But they are still a formidable team and obviously they’ll go into the game as favourites but it’s probably a good game to get first up.

“I always feel if you start tournaments or seasons well it obviously takes the pressure off you going into the rest of it, so I’m really targeting, personally, that first game against the West Indies and if I can get a good score there, hopefully I can push on and do well for the rest of the tournament.”