An Annual Ritual

Every August for the last 41 years I have travelled to Ireland to play cricket.

We were the first touring team to play in Castlebar, the last holdout of the revolutionary forces in 1798. We were the first English XI to play the Irish Army at the Curragh with the Irish as hosts – losing by one run.

I still recall the painful occasion we sat down to play poker after returning to our bed and breakfast from an evening at the pub. Our elderly host asked to join us. We welcomed him. He said that he had never played the game before. We believed him and explained the rules. He won a large pot. We were delighted for him. We were still playing at dawn five hours later, by which time our host had cleaned us out. At length he stood up, went across to his cabinet, dug out a bottle of poteen, poured himself a glass, and put the bottle back. He could have shown mercy and offered us a drink.

This year, three of our players dropped out on the eve of our first match owing to injury. I put out an emergency call over X (which I still think of as Twitter). Several Irishmen came to the rescue. One of them, Ali, was a charismatic medical student who turned out to open the bowling for Bulgaria.