Ireland look to make an early strike

CRICKET/Under-19 World Cup: There has never been a better time to be a young and talented Irish cricketer. With the senior team doing so well and the International Cricket Council determined to promote the game beyond its usual boundaries, there are now opportunities that the fine Irish players of yesteryear could only have dreamed about.

Take the current Ireland Under-19 team, for example. Gone are the days that these youngsters had to be satisfied with the occasional boat trip to take on the best of Wales or Scotland in a wind-swept field while spending the winter months playing soccer or rugby by day and listening to the crackling sounds of cricket from the Southern Hemisphere on BBC World Service by night.

This year's crop have been in Colombo for over a week now, acclimatising to the hot and humid Sri Lankan conditions. And while they haven't had much time to enjoy the delights of this jewel of the Indian Ocean, it still beats February back in a slightly less exotic island in an altogether chillier sea.

The Under-19 Cricket World Cup gets under way tomorrow and while the Irish are enjoying the experience of all that cricket, sub-continent-style, has to offer, they maintain they are not here merely to make up the numbers.

"It's a great experience," said opening batsman and wicket-keeper Fintan McAllister.

"Everything is different here - the pitches, the weather, the food and it is fantastic to get the chance to play here and hopefully learn from it," he said.

"But while we're probably underdogs, we don't fear anyone. We feel that if we play to the best of our ability we can beat anyone. The fact that we are underdogs just means that no one expects anything from us and we have no pressure on us."

There is a real feeling if Ireland's key players do fire in tomorrow's opener against Zimbabwe, the first upset of the tournament could be on the cards. Zim cricket is in disarray, with allegations of corruption and the suspension of the country's Test status. Confidence is bound to be low among all those involved.

But before Ireland get carried away with themselves they must accept the tag of underdog is justified.

The warm-up games did not go entirely to plan and prior to Wednesday's friendly against Scotland they had not played a match since last summer.

That they won that match and performed quite well as a unit could be attributed to what racing enthusiasts call the "bounce-back factor" because they went out the following day and disappointingly lost to a sharp and effective Uganda side.

So far, skipper and star batsman Eoin Morgan has yet to score runs and the bowling has been inconsistent with far too many wides.

There have been plenty of positives, though. Civil Service batsman Gary Wilson looks good in the middle, as does Ricky Stirling of Cliftonville and new-find all-rounder Andrew Poynter who is on the books at Middlesex.

Team spirit is good and to be fair, Ireland's group is the most wide open with England, Zimbabwe and Nepal fighting it out.

Two from each group go through to the quarter-finals and that is seen as the genuine goal for this talented and rapidly worldly group of young Irishmen.

IRELAND (probable 12 - including supersub): Eoin Morgan (Middlesex), Gary Wilson (Civil Service), Fintan McAllister (Rush), Gary Kidd (Waringstown), Andrew Poynter (Middelsex), Greg Thompson (Lisburn), Gareth McKee (Cliftonville), James Hall (Waringstown), Richard Stirling (Cliftonville), Neill Gill (Muckamore), David Rankin (Bready), Niall McDarby (CYM).