CRICKET:IT MAY be used in evidence against him on the rugby fields in time to come but international referee Alan Lewis has no problem admitting the tears flowed freely as Ireland wrapped up their sensational three-wicket victory over England in Bangalore on Wednesday night.
The fact the show of emotion came on BBC Radio’s iconic Test Match Special doesn’t bother him at all after the Dubliner hot-footed it from Twickenham, where he ran the line in last Saturday’s bruising clash between England and France, to act as summariser for Ireland’s two games at the Chinnaswamy Stadium.
As Kevin O’Brien tore World Cup history books and English hearts to shreds with his record-breaking century from 50 balls, Lewis reflected on just how far things have moved on since the last of his 121 cricket caps, back in 1997.
And especially on the missed opportunity of that year, when he lost out on his own shot at World Cup glory after Ireland lost to Scotland in a third place play-off in Kuala Lumpur, thus missing out on the 1999 staging of the event in England.
“To be honest, I’ve been through my own personal history in a different era with Ireland when qualification for the World Cup was tears of disappointment,” admitted Lewis at the team hotel in the aftermath of a long night of celebrations.
“In a sense just to see what this team has achieved, I’ve been overwhelmed with the spirit, the togetherness and just how good they are. They believe they can beat anyone in this tournament and they’re just playing their own way, they’re doing their own thing.”
Lewis is still playing senior cricket for YMCA at the ripe young age of 46 and has followed the career of many of the present Ireland team since they first started playing club cricket.
He took particular pride in Kevin O’Brien’s knock, not just the power and brutality of his hitting, but also his mindset in a pressure-cooker situation after Ireland had been reduced to 111 for five chasing a World Cup record of 328 for victory.
“Kevin said in an interview after the game ‘Do we really want to be 220 for nine at the end of this? No I want to give this a go’ and once he got going he stayed with it.
“But then once he realised we could win it, he changed and that was the most fascinating thing for me, they way he just manoeuvred the ball around, he had complete comfort in his own game.”
With congratulations coming from all quarters, including a personal call from President Mary McAleese, Lewis had a word of advice for the new Government as they begin the process of rebuilding the economy.
Simple, come and see how the Ireland cricket team operate.
“From what I’ve seen, Ireland Inc should come and and mirror everything that these 15 guys have done. They’ve shown what fighting spirit is, how they went about winning and using their skills to the maximum as a small country.”
Of course Ireland’s development curve could be stymied from the next 50-over World Cup, with the International Cricket Council (ICC) reducing the number of competing countries from 14 down to 10 in 2015. They are set to decide if there will be a qualification process when the present tournament ends.
Some horribly one-sided games between full member and associate nations in the group stages seemed to lend weight to their argument until Ireland’s victory on Wednesday night. The consensus, though, is the decision is purely to reduce costs and keep the money at the top table.
And Cricket Ireland chief executive Warren Deutrom believes that would be a disaster if the game has truly global ambitions.
“We understand the difficulties involved but if it’s a credible international sport then it can’t have finance as the sole consideration. If that’s the case, then the sport is in a much poorer place than we think it is,” said Deutrom.
And Deutrom believes the success of the Ireland team at another world event will aid the governing body’s bid to grow participation by 100 per cent by 2015.
“In the next four years we are not going to have such an exclusive focus on the men’s senior squad,” he admitted.
“We are going to start to invest more in grassroots, more development officers so we can hit our pretty ambitious targets of doubling from 25,000 up to 50,000. I think that will make us more than just an organisation that organises the international squads into a proper governing body.”
Striking while the iron is hot is high on the agenda right now and Deutrom believes victories like Wednesday’s will make a difference.
“We entirely hope that what happened yesterday, irrespective almost of what Ireland does now, the very fact that we’re able to chase 328 demonstrates that we can be competitive against the full member countries under pressure in a World Cup situation.”
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