Brophy in spotlight

When Mike Hendrick - remember him? - was Ireland's national cricket coach, frequent dark mutterings used to be voiced to the effect that he'd do the job better if he were domiciled in the south, rather than the north, of the island.

Well, no such criticisms can be levelled at his successor, the former New Zealand captain Ken Rutherford; he lives in Malahide, and only permanent residence in the Clontarf CC pavilion could have brought him any closer to the build-up to today's action at Castle Avenue, where his charges play their first home match of the season, against Shropshire, in the first round of the NatWest Trophy.

Rutherford, of course, has had the benefit of starting his tenure during last month's Emerging Nations Tournament in Zimbabwe. During that event, Ireland defeated Scotland for the first time since 1993.

The prowess of Ireland's only new cap and current overseas player, the South African-born wicketkeeper Gerry Brophy, will be watched with interest. He qualifies through his Irish parents, and has previous experience of Irish cricket gained with Merrion in 1995, when he scored 583 runs for an average of 32.48, and also represented South Leinster in the Interprovincial Championship.

Last year, Shropshire finished fourth in the Minor Counties Western Division table, and their captain, Bryan Jones, was fifth in the batting averages, with 52.00.

Last season, Shropshire's leading bowler was Asif Din, formerly of Warwickshire. He took 30 wickets at an average of 16.9.

Jones, Davies and Asif Din are all likely to play today, but Angus Dunlop and his men obviously will want to capitalise on home advantage and get their campaign away to a winning start. Play begins at Castle Avenue at 10.45 this morning.

IRELAND: A Dunlop (YMCA) capt, B Archer (The Hills), G Brophy (Cliftonville/Free State) w/k, O Butler (Old Belvedere), G Cooke (Brigade), P Davy (Pembroke), M Dwyer (The Hills), P Gillespie (Strabane), D Heasley (Lisburn), E Joyce (Merrion/Middlesex), K McCallan (Cliftonville), P Mooney (North County).

SHROPSHIRE: J Jones (capt), T Parton, Asif Din, M Davies, A Johnson, G Byram, A Byram, A Shimmons, M Tilt (w/k), J Ralph, J Anders, A Hafeez, A O'Connor.

UMPIRES: M Dixon, T Wilson.

The International Cricket Council (ICC) has invited players and officials to Lords today to hand over any information they have on match-fixing and corruption in the game - with the promise of an amnesty for anyone coming forward.

The emergency meeting follows an appeal by Lord MacLaurin, chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board, that the leading cricket nations should assemble for a world summit to discuss the crisis.