One of the surprise packages from the 2007 Cricket World Cup was the success of the Ireland in reaching the “super eight” stage of the tournament. This is a remarkable achievement for a nation where cricket is a marginal sport, at best.
Dave Langford-Smith was a club cricketer for University of NSW before moving to Ireland to play cricket. He was one of the better performers in the team during the cup, taking seven wickets at an economy rate of 41.57 – great going given the quality of the opposition. He was best known, though, for the Irish jig he danced each time he snared a wicket, as this video shows.
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spiro zavos said | June 12th 2007 @ 12:43pm | Report comment
This posting is a terrific tribute to all those cricketers who toil away, sometimes in the lower grades, in the distant hope that somehow, somewhere, sometime they can show their stuff on the big stage of the international arena. I’ve always thought that for good bowlers the lower the grade they play, the harder it is for them – except if they are terrifyingly fast. But the higher they go the better the fielding becomes, so all those catches dropped in the slips in the University of NSW grade side (Zac, remember the game you and the other slippers used to play of closing your eyes before certain deliveries?) are snaffled up, as the video shows, in international play.
How many other Dave Langford-Smiths, cricketers of character and ability, are playing in the Sydney grade competition? As the poet Gray says in his famous Elegy: ‘Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness in the desert air …’