ICC Intercontinental Cup and Shield

IRELAND v UNITED ARAB EMIRATES The United Arab Emirates were weakened by six of their leading players making themselves unavailable by not attending the pre-match training camp because of work commitments. This resulted in comments by some of the Emirates Cricket Board officials about whether certain senior players recognised the importance of the tournament and were correctly prioritising the matches to miss. It was also expected that the Emirates’ players would suffer from the very hot, dry conditions as it was the third week of Ramadan and they would not be able to replenish food and liquid intake during the day. Ireland included Andre Botha in their squad of 13, even though he had an injured toe, with the expectation that he would be able to play in the final should they qualify. The Irish travel plans went awry when the plane carrying the four players from Northern Ireland was delayed and the onward flight to Namibia from London (Gatwick) was missed. The players concerned spent the night on the airport floor before travelling to Frankfurt the following day and then catching the evening Air Namibia flight to arrive twenty-four hours after their colleagues. Given the high temperatures and altitude which were so affecting Bermuda in the other semi-final, the Irish were perhaps fortunate to win the toss and bat first. Dominick Joyce and Jeremy Bray opened with a partnership of 111 in 128 minutes but, 15 minutes before lunch, Joyce hit a long-hop from Ali Asad straight to square leg. Eoin Morgan helped take the lunch score to 127 but soon after the interval Bray fell leg-before to the medium-pacer, Vairamoorthy Sockalingam. The nineteen-year-old Morgan was full of confidence, however, and, in a display of driving all round the ground and wristy hits to leg, scored 116 runs in the afternoon session, bringing up his hundred with a six to mid-wicket off Rizwan Latif. In contrast, wickets fell regularly at the other end. The Emirates used nine bowlers but only Ali Asad was really effective, taking four of the six wickets to fall in the afternoon session. He was the only one able to extract life from a cracked pitch of uncertain bounce. The ball that accounted for Conor Armstrong lifted, hit his bat and then the helmet grille, leaving him with a cut mouth, before falling on to the stumps. After tea Morgan was adjudged leg-before, trying to hit a straight ball from Ali Asad to leg, ending a superb innings; his 151 runs were accumulated at a strike rate of 100.6. Two overs later, Ireland passed the 350 to obtain their seventh batting point and immediately declared to prevent the Emirates from acquiring more than their 3.5 bowling points. It proved to be a wise decision since, after a long hot day in the field, the Emirates found concentration difficult. In the second over of the innings Paul Mooney made the ball cut back from the off to trap the danger batsman, Arshad Ali, leg-before and, next ball, accounted for nightwatchman, Sameer Zia. Two more wickets fell before the close when the Emirates were 273 runs behind. Mohammad Taskeen and Rameez Shahzad were the only two Emirates’ batsmen to survive longer than one hour, as Trent Johnston destroyed the middle and lower order by using a shorter run-up than usual to conserve energy and bowling line and length and making the occasional ball swing away. His maiden five-wicket haul, in his first match as captain, was obtained for 33 runs from only 10.3 overs. The Irish lead of 161 runs could have been even more, if Johnston, Adrian McCoubrey and Mooney had not between them contributed 22 no-balls. Ireland were batting again by 1.00 pm with 71 overs remaining in the day. With 12 bonus points to the Emirates’ seven and only four possible batting points available in the second innings to bring the total to 16, assuming they passed 200, Ireland needed to declare at some point to prevent the Emirates from obtaining a full set of bowling points without which they could not get to 16 even if they scored over 200 in their second innings. A conflicting consideration, however, was that Johnston did not want to declare too soon and risk exhausting his bowlers with only one day of rest between the semi-final and final. Ireland had a setback when Joyce was forced to retire hurt after being hit in the eye by a ball which got through his helmet grille and Morgan fell cheaply to Sockalingam. Thereafter Bray and Niall O’Brien overwhelmed the Emirates’ bowling, adding 269 runs by the close. In a desperate attempt to part them, ten bowlers were tried but to no avail. Ireland led by 467 runs with nine wickets in hand. Ireland declared shortly before lunch on the third day, by which time both Bray and O’Brien had been dismissed but not until their second-wicket partnership had been extended to 304 and both had reached their highest first-class scores. Set 606 runs to win, the Emirates concentrated on saving pride, a task in which they succeeded. Arshad Ali and Usman Saleem shared a second-wicket partnership of 98 and, aided by a ninth-wicket defensive effort from Sameer Zia and Ali Asad, the latter batting with a runner, a draw was salvaged. Ireland thus easily qualified for the final. Jeremy Bray was made Man of the Match. 76 ICC Intercontinental Cup 2005