Trains ran erratically in Malahide the day Ireland made their Test debut in May 2018. It was a great day in their history. It was something they had worked almost all their professional lives for. It was something in fact they had given up on. Now they were no longer "Associates", a tag their captain William Porterfield doesn't seem fond of. "It was always two innings in the backyard when I played with [my brother] Niall," says Kevin O'Brien. Oh, the hype, the build-up. The families were all there. The crowds were all excited. The pubs were filled with the talk around Test cricket.
It was nearly a year in the making, in that the announcement
that Ireland were now a Test team was made in June 2017. As some of the
veterans of that side will tell you, it was actually a lifetime in the making.
And then when the big day arrived, it rained. It rained, and it rained, and it
rained. Another night of anticipation, of sleeplessness, and cruelly four of
these guys' first innings in Test cricket ended inside eight overs. And Gary
Wilson injured himself during warm-up that very day.
Half the side gone in eight overs. Porterfield, who has
rallied for the Associates all his career, could feel the knives were
sharpening. "If we had rolled over and lost by an innings," he
recounts, "a lot of people would have questioned us."
Later that month, in a totally different setting,
Afghanistan, Ireland's much-more celebrated Associate cousins, prepared for
their Test debut in Dehradun in India. Dehradun, about which Boyd Rankin
recently and politely said: "There isn't much else to do here, but it's
been nice to have a games room here with pool and table tennis to kill some
time. We have been very well looked after by the hotel staff here which has
been great." There really isn't. Unless you want to get lost in the nature
in the outskirts, which you can't really do when playing international cricket
every other day.
At the risk of offending Afghanistan, there are parallels
between the town and the Test status for the team that calls it home. One fine
day, the giant state of Uttar Pradesh got carved into two, and this beautiful
old town found itself in a strategically perfect location to be the capital of
the new state, Uttarakhand. With that came a boom that the town didn't have
infrastructure for.
Afghanistan, with all the talent they had, ruled the
Associate world, but didn't go through the struggle Ireland went through nor
had the first-class structure, some might contend. Naturally gifted and hence
deserving of Test status by virtue of being the best Associate team, but
possibly unaware of what to do with it now. A bit like their home base in
India.
Their approach to their Test debut was somewhat cavalier.
They spent most of the time playing T20Is in a place hundreds of miles from the
venue of their Test. Only Test specialists got some Test training, but how much
of this two-timing can the same support staff manage with international cricket
on? Add to it erratic timings because of the fasting in the month of Ramadan
just before the Test. Go to sleep at 3am, Test specialists train at 8am, others
in the afternoon, then fasting, and more crucially only two days or so of
red-ball practice for some key players in the side.
In two days, unlike Ireland, they rolled over. "These
are not excuses, but they contribute," says Mohammad Shahzad. "I
still remember that Test just passed us by. We didn't even realise what was
going on when the match was on. Only later did we realise that we have already
played a Test match."
O'Brien says: "We knew we were Test cricketers. Nobody
could take it away from us," aware not many would have shed a tear if
Ireland hadn't got Test status in his cricketing lifetime. Nobody could take it
away, but many would have questioned it bitterly, the way they did Afghanistan
a month later if it hadn't been for O'Brien's hundred in the second innings,
which not only averted an innings defeat but also gave Pakistan a scare in the
final innings.
That second dig, after having been bowled out for 130 by
some pretty good seam bowlers in helpful conditions, showed Ireland they could
stick around in Test cricket. They had the experience of having played a lot of
first-class cricket as professionals in England, but this was a notch higher.
Asked to follow on, it was during the 26 wicket-less overs
on the third evening that Porterfield could say: yes this is Test cricket, and
we are playing it. It was high and sustained pressure, excellent seam bowling,
and it took the best out of two Ireland stalwarts, Porterfield and Ed Joyce, to
thwart Mohammad Amir, Mohammad Abbas and Rahat Ali.
"Probably some of the most enjoyable personally was in
the second innings when Mohammad Amir bowled a spell," Porterfield says.
"That's where you really felt, 'Yes this is Test cricket.' The bowler is
giving you nothing, and the wicket is doing a bit. You have to enjoy that
challenge. If you don't, there is no pint being on that pitch."
It was this 29-over partnership that O'Brien later built on.
"I didn't change much except look to play along the ground after my
first-innings dismissal at extra cover," O'Brien says. "I just kept
telling Stuart [Thompson], 'Let's get five more, 10 more, five more, make
Pakistan bat again.'" And those five runs, 10 runs, came and kept coming
until Pakistan were asked to chase 160, and reduced to 14 for 3 inside five
overs.
Afghanistan never gave themselves the opportunity to do
that. Mohammad Nabi admits as much, and says this time is different. He says
their Test specialists - promising fast bowlers Yamin Ahmadzai and Wafadar
Momand, batsmen like Nasir Jamal and Ikram Ali Khil - have been preparing
exclusively with the red ball for a month now. They have played little
first-class cricket since the Bangalore debacle - many have played none at all,
but at least this is a start. And these are teams that need to look after
themselves because international cricket won't. The gap between the two Tests -
10 months for Ireland and nine for Afghanistan - is part of the chicken-egg
situation: how do you do well without experience, and how do you get experience
if you don't play, which depends on your doing well?
At least there is a realisation you have to play fewer shots
in Tests. "We have done it in Intercontinental Cup, but we need to be
extra careful in Tests," says Shahzad. That you have to do things for
longer in Test cricket. Afghanistan haven't seen the benefits of such
persistence and resistance; Ireland have. Afghanistan are likely to finally
have home conditions - they did get done in by India's ploy to lay out a
seaming pitch, never mind the wickets that fell to Indian spinners too. Ireland
will be in totally alien conditions against a spin attack waiting for the
freshness of day one to wear out of the surface.
These are Test players, you can't take it away from them.
Now it is a chance for them to add to it, a Test win that nobody can take away
from them. Only one side will get it. Who knows when players from the other
side will get that chance again?
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