Eddie Norfolk
Ireland eventually won a match late on the fourth and final day that several in the crowd thought would be over within an hour on the third day. The fine efforts with the bat from Ashish Bagai and Khurram Chohan in a ninth wicket stand on day three had given Canada a possibility of success in setting the Irish a target of 176. A bit of a shower, brought proceedings to an early close on Thursday before a proper storm hit the area a few minutes later.
Decibel-friendly announcements meant at least one person turned up on Friday surprised to find play in progress. Indeed, Ireland made good use of the 10 am start to draw within 28 runs of victory before rain halted play around 10.30 am, which had been the start time on previous days.

Allan White survived an early appeal for caught behind, with the keeper standing up to Rizwan Cheema. John Mooney survived an appeal for leg-before wicket against Chohan’s bowling, and cashed in with a boundary to third-man that went low past the third of the slips. Mooney drove a couple of boundaries on the offside and pulled another to midwicket, which helped relieve pressure on the Irish batting. Cricket might be a funny game, but some of what happens in ICC Associates cricket can be even stranger.

Henry Osinde came into the attack and bowled with some fire, but his extra pace helped one relatively defensive, but well-timed shot go straight back to the boundary, A couple of spots of rain had come down, then the spots stopped, but with Ireland needing 28 more runs for victory, there was a bit more rain, then patches of no rain followed by heavy rain setting in. But, some five hours later, play resumed, allowing White and Mooney to seal victory for the visitors. White reached 59, including eight boundaries, and Mooney made 16 not out.

Osinde took 2 wickets for 30 runs in the Irish second innings, to bring match figures of 7 wickets for 98 runs. The game also concludes Canada’s 2009-2010 ICC Intercontinental Cup program with a sad record of 1 draw and 5 defeats. The draw was in Holland where Canada failed with the bat in the first innings, then fought back with Sunil Dhaniram making 144, Qaiser Ali 66, Asif Mulla 40 and both Chohan and Umar Bhatti scoring 36 at the bottom end of the batting.

Hopefully the rain will revive, and in some places bring, life to various parts of the new turf on the northern side of the Toronto club’s outfield, and someone will try to roll the more lush looking turf beyond the western boundary so it might knit with the underlying ground. At some stage, after the one-day international games due on Monday and Tuesday, some soil and miracle grass seed might be used to fill in some of the gaps in the new turf, especially in the north-east corner, near the tennis courts.

But Rome was not built in a day, as one official told me either last year or the year before. Well, a fair number, if not an excessive number, of Canadian international cricketers careers seem to be built, or fall, in a day or less, sometimes, seemingly, for no reason, one way or the other.

I wonder what happened to the grass wickets at Lords? The G. Ross Lord Park variety Lord’s, not the one in the old county of Middlesex up the road from Sherlock Holmes territory? Alive in 2001, revived in mid-2006, now gone, although the green growth of weeds and grass was better when I passed the ground last week than when the wickets had been turned to a barren waste.

It sometimes helps to have a short memory, or to have deaf ears in Canadian cricket circles. Tomorrow is another day. Perhaps time to pop up to King City to see how the stadium development plans are racing ahead….or are stuck in a new ice age, despite global warming.

ICC Intercontinental Cup at Toronto Cricket Club

Final scores: 4-day game played August 31 through September 3, 2010

Canada 120 all out (32 overs; Zubin Surkari 28, Trent Johnston 5 wickets for 23 runs) and 316 all out (106.5 overs: Ashish Bagai 90, Zubin Surkari 72, Kurram Chohan 59, Ruvindu Gunasekera 47, Kevin O’Brien 5 wickets for 39, Andre Botha 3 wickets for 25)

Ireland 261 all out (72 overs; Allan White 84, Kevin O’Brien 57, Paul Stirling 45, Henry Osinde 5 wickets for 68 runs) and 176 for four wickets (41.4 overs: Andre Botha 61, Allan White 59 not out)

Ireland (20 points) won by six wickets