John Kenny's World Cup Diary
Entry 16 - 5 April 2007
The rain continues to hammer down here in Georgetown Guyana. It also rained, although intermittently during Ireland's loss to South Africa and that cost Trent Johnston's side big time.
Losing the toss, Ireland were put in to bat and made a slowish start, bidding to bat out their full 50 overs. However when the rains came, the overs were dropped to 35 and Ireland had to accelerate quickly.
As it was, they did well to get to 152 for 8 and South Africa were then chasing 160 to win. That target was a revised one under a complicated ruling known as Duckworth-Lewis (D/L) which comes into play when games are affected by the weather.
The D/L method was devised by two English statisticians, Frank Duckworth and Tony Lewis and was first used in international cricket in the second game of the 1996/7 Zimbabwe-England One Day series, which Zimbabwe won by seven runs.
In 2001, it was formally adopted by the International Cricket Council (ICC) as the method of calculating target scores in rain affected one day matches.
Previous methods used to achieve the same task proved unpopular and indeed unfair, so D/L is now the standard. (It's too complicated to fully explain but let's just say it seems to work).
Ireland still have four games to come in the Super Eights against New Zealand here in Guyana followed by Australia and Bangladesh in Barbados and Sri Lanka on the Island of Greneda, famously invaded by the US Army under instructions from Ronald Regan in 1984. (Nobody seems to have worked out why they did it).
It's hard to know if Ireland can lift themselves to win another game. The teams in the Super Eights are powering towards a place in the semi-finals with Bangladesh the only side out of contention. That might be the one game that gives Ireland a chance of another World Cup win. It would be nice to see after all the hard work Adi Birrell's side have put into this competition.
Ireland have shrugged off the 'Minnows' tag. They are now a second tier team capable of upsetting the big guns on their day.
It's now a long enough wait for the next game against New Zealand next Monday. The players have a few days off and will head to see the spectacular Kaieteur Falls shortly before resuming training.
New Zealand are an outside bet to win the tournament. They look strong at the top of the batting order and their bowlers, with Shane Bond in particular, can hassle the very best.
Ireland will find next Monday's game at the Providence Stadium in Georgetown very tough indeed.
By the way, the small Irish press corps is dwindling every day as more and more leave and the remaining journalists and reporters can now be counted on one hand.
