Ireland beat Bangladesh

We believe that Ireland beat Bangladesh yesterday.

* Irony alert *

We're disgusted that this can happen. The organisers of the World Cup have to take some responsibility for allowing this. They should have ensured that the draw, the scheduling and the conditions all prevented Ireland from beating a Test team.

The whole point of the World Cup is that we see the best teams. If the best teams lose, it just ruins it for everybody. Nobody wants to see a World Cup with upsets such as this. The minnows have no place in the World Cup. There's too much at stake.

The next thing you know, Australia won't win the tournament. It'll be a dark day for the ICC when that happens. A dark day indeed.

Ed Joyce used to play for Ireland

We wonder how Ed Joyce is feeling right now. He did as much as anyone to help Ireland qualify for this World Cup. He was their best batsman. Now he's switched allegiance and plays for England.

Ireland have tied with Zimbabwe and knocked out Pakistan. England have been beaten by New Zealand. Ed Joyce's contribution was a duck.

Cricket's role on St Patrick's Day

We were going to accompany this update with a picture of a leprechaun. Then we thought maybe people wouldn't see it as a comment on one-note, shamrock-and-Guinness media knee-jerkism. We'd hate to be lumped in with all those cliché-mongers - and yes, there is such a thing as a cliché-monger.

Instead we've included a rather classy picture of a woman drinking in a Dublin pub. This update revolves around the Irish drinking in pubs on St Patrick's Day, because that's not at all a cliché. Ho no no.

Does anyone have an eye-witness account of St Patrick's Day in Ireland's pubs? It strikes us that Ireland's cricket win was perfectly-timed to pick up the pieces after the rugby team were cruelly robbed of the Six Nations in the dying seconds of France's game against Scotland.

We have this image of disappointed Irishmen switching channel after the rugby, only to find that a different Ireland team are winning against the odds. Everyone sits, rapt, until the winning run is scored. Lo, at a stroke, cricket has forced itself into the national consciousness and cricket in Ireland never looks back.

Either that or no-one understands what the score means and switches off half-way through.

Ireland beat Pakistan... at cricket

Maybe we don't really need to specify the sport, but there are times when you just need to reinforces something. Ireland aren't particularly recognised as a cricketing nation. Pakistan are.

Following on from Ireland's tied game against Zimbabwe, they've now gone one better and actually defeated Test opposition. They've knocked Pakistan out of the World Cup and given themselves a great chance of qualifying for the next round.

As with that tied game, it was once again a true team performance in the field. Determined fielding abounded and the wickets were shared between six bowlers. Pakistan are prone to the occasional collapse and it was a helpful, green wicket, but 132 all out represented a colossal triumph for Ireland all the same.

In chasing down that total, the plaudits must go to Niall O'Brien, Ireland's wicket-keeper. Only two other players passed 20 in the entire match. Niall O'Brien hit 72.

This is Jeremy Bray - he had a good day yesterday

Ireland tied with Zimbabwe. Yes, that's right - tied. It doesn't happen all that often.

Congratulations to Ireland on a splendid performance. Jeremy Bray in particular who hit 115 not out. Jeremy Bray has a painfully short first-class record, considering that he played for Australia under-19s. He actually played for New South Wales briefly, but shortly afterwards moved to Ireland with his girlfriend who returned to see her seriously ill father.

On that basis, he sounds like a selfless sort of chap and as we know virtually nothing else about him, that's the way we're going to depict him. So let's all give Jeremy Bray a hearty slap on the back. For once, this is his day. Or rather yesterday was.

Zimbabwe needed 15 off 36 balls with four wickets intact. We're slightly torn between our desire to credit Ireland with a fantastic fightback and our equally strong desire to say that Zimbabwe are shit.

Let's just say that it was a true team performance by Ireland. The lower order supported Bray magnificently, helping Ireland to 221-9 after being 89-5. Then, in the field, seven wickets were shared between six bowlers and there were three run-outs.

Maybe it's just because it's Friday and the sun's shining and we've already finished all our work for the week, but this Ireland performance has gladdened our cold, stony, unfeeling heart.

Ireland v Zimbabwe

Have we just found ourself in the hitherto unexperienced position of supporting Ireland at something?

If Ireland beat Zimbabwe it'll be one more step along the road to the ICC ceasing to humour Zimbabwe by saying: 'Yes, you can play Test cricket again in a year - you'll have improved by then', when they clearly won't have improved at all.

Maybe then, nations like Kenya, who actually seem interested in cricket, can get a little bit more support in Zimbabwe's place.

Ireland's Dave Langford-Smith makes a mess of South Africa's top order

Where were you when Dave Langford-Smith reduced South Africa to 42-3 by taking the wickets of Graeme Smith, A B De Villiers and Jaques Kallis?

Okay, so maybe it's not 'where were you when' big, but it was still a bit of a moment for Ireland and in particular for Dave Langford-Smith. South Africa escaped with a win, thanks to their tactic of batting down to number 11. We're not sure this justifies that tactic, however. One narrow escape against Ireland in a warm-up match does not a winning philosophy make.

Anyway, back to Dave Langford-Smith. There aren't many Daves in cricket. Davids, sure, but not so many Daves. Dave Mohammed's the only one we can think of off the top of our head and he makes Dave sound a bit exotic. We're not sure about the hyphenated surname, but overall we're in favour of more cricketing Daves.

Are we allowed to say that Dave Langford-Smith looks really Irish? We think it might sound a bit racist, but somehow he does, which is ironic because he's actually from Australia originally.