Fun begins against Hampshire

CRICKET: Ireland's cricketers open their Cheltenham & Gloucester Trophy campaign with an eagerly awaited match against defending champions Hampshire in Castle Avenue tomorrow.

It is the start of perhaps the busiest and certainly the most high-profile 12 months in the 200-year history of the game in this country. Tomorrow's match, which will be televised live on Sky Sports, is the first of nine that coach Adrian Birrell's team will play against English professional opposition before the end of June and this is the first year Ireland have been invited to take part in a round-robin county tournament.

But that's not the only form of cricket they'll be playing. From May 17th to 20th Ireland will begin their defence of the InterContinental Cup with a four-day game against Namibia, also in Castle Avenue. The southern African republic was the scene of Ireland's glorious victory in the final of the 2005 competition last October and a victory over the Namibians and another over Scotland in Aberdeen in August would book their place in the world finals again, to be held early next year in a venue yet to be decided.

Then on June 13th the historic first meeting of Ireland and England in a full one-day international will take place in Stormont.

With the likes of Andrew Flintoff, Michael Vaughan and Kevin Pietersen almost certain to make the trip to Belfast, it is a huge opportunity for an Irish audience to see these players in the flesh.

With the usual European Championships (to be held this year in Glasgow), one-off games like the one involving MCC at Lord's on August 15th and a host of other Ireland A fixtures, it's going to be an action-packed summer for Ireland's elite cricketers.

The hard slog will not stop when the days shorten next September either. Winter training as well as competitions scheduled for sunnier climes in southern locations like South Africa and Kenya will keep the players in tune as they focus on the World Cup in the West Indies next March, for which Ireland have qualified for the first time.

Unfortunately for neutral fans (and any masochistic Irish bowlers) Pietersen has been ruled out of the Hampshire team for tomorrow's big game with an injury sustained on England's recent tour to India. Club captain Shane Warne has not yet arrived for the season as he is still on international duty for Australia. But with the likes of former England batsman John Crawley, fast bowler Chris Tremlett, current England off-spinner Shaun Udal and promising Zimbabwean all-rounder Sean Ervine (who holds an Irish passport, incidentally) named in the squad, it is still going to be a tough game for Birrell's charges.

But, as ever, he has set his sights very high: "Our goal is to win half of our C&G Trophy matches," said Birrell. "It is a lofty goal but we feel we have a good chance of doing that."

A lot of Ireland's fortunes depend on their two overseas players, Shahid Afridi and Saqlain Mushtaq.

It was a curious decision by the Irish Cricket Union to select two spinners to play on pitches that will most likely favour seam bowling but when their first choice, Abdul Razzaq, pulled out, they were probably left with few options and so Afridi was drafted.

His arrival has been delayed as he had to return home to Pakistan to be with his sick daughter, but it is hoped that he will arrive in Dublin today.

"This is an enormous year for us as a team," said Birrell, who has announced that he will stand down as national coach after the World Cup. "We want to maintain the standards that we have set ourselves in recent times and continue to improve."

While the first team are donning that extra sweater for a chilly April fixture, the Ireland A squad are in an altogether different environment as they compete in the EurAsia series in Abu Dhabi, starting today, against the A teams of India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka as well as the full sides of the Netherlands and the UAE.

IRELAND (squad): Trent Johnston (Clontarf) Captain, Shahid Afridi (Pakistan), Andre Botha (North County), Jeremy Bray (Eglinton), Peter Gillespie (Strabane), Dominick Joyce (Merrion/Dublin University), David Langford-Smith (Phoenix), Eoin Morgan (Middlesex), Kyle McCallan (Waringstown), Adrian McCoubrey (Saffron Walden), Saqlain Mushtaq (Pakistan), Andrew White (Northamptonshire).

HAMPSHIRE: (squad): Nic Pothas, John Crawley, Dominic Thornley, Michael Carbury, Greg Lamb, Sean Ervine, Chris Benham, Dimitri Mascarenhas, Shaun Udal, James Bruce, Kevin Latouf, Chris Tremlett, Richard Logan.