An Irish Cricketer Who made It To The Cricinfo HL

A couple of days ago, cricket avatar was found highlighting the way Bangladesh cricket has advanced over the years and more so in the recent past after their entry into the super eights of the world cup 2007 held in the Caribbean. Now, though, the world has seen a lot of cricket in and by Ireland, hardly was there any Irish cricket player who had made news for either setting up a victory for his side or for announcing retirement from international cricket. Now, Ireland can feel proud that a cricket player from the island nation has made it to the headlines when he quit international cricket today.

This is Jeremy Bray for you. The Irish batsman who played 15 one day internationals and two T20 matches for Ireland from the ICC world cup 2007 quit from all forms of international cricket today. May be the way Ireland made it to the super eights of that world cup would be written in his autobiography one can suppose. The player under consideration is one such player who made his international cricket debut at the age of 33. May be, this is the second time Irish cricket has hit the headlines of a leading sports website whatsoever. The first time being in 2007 after Ireland beat Pakistan to enter the super eights.

The day a player retires from international cricket, all applause starts pouring upon him. However, this can never ever be the case with any Irish player atleast in the near future. And Bray is no exception. Statistics suggest that the player held the record for the highest first class score for Ireland when he scored 190 against UAE in the intercontinental cup 2005 for two years. The player also has a century for a tied cause against his name and also a man of the match award for the same when he scored an unbeaten 115 against Zimbabwe in the same world cup 2007.

May be hardly anyone would have noticed that Ireland are the only non test playing team in the world to have had one day wins against three test playing nations when they beat Zimbabwe (who have a history of playing test cricket atleast), Pakistan and Bangladesh in the 2007 world cup once again. Added to this would be the 304 run partnership against UAE and the 146 runs he scored against Canada in the finals of the intercontinental cup the same year. This can be considered as a golden era for Irish cricket at present. And Jeremy Bray should consider himself lucky enough to have been in the squad during this golden era. So, the theory behind this is that, in case a player's achievements should come to light, he's to retire from the game.