{"id":11430,"date":"2018-05-10T18:22:12","date_gmt":"2018-05-10T21:52:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/?p=11430"},"modified":"2018-05-10T18:22:12","modified_gmt":"2018-05-10T21:52:12","slug":"ireland-plays-first-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/?p=11430","title":{"rendered":"Ireland plays first test"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In July 2001 a half-century from 23 year-old Ed Joyce <a href=\"http:\/\/www.espncricinfo.com\/series\/8038\/scorecard\/66858\/Canada-vs-Ireland--icc-trophy\">led Ireland to victory over Canada at the ICC Trophy at G Ross Lord Park, Toronto<\/a>. 17 years later Ed Joyce is part of an Ireland team that will play Pakistan in Ireland&#8217;s first Test match, starting on Friday at Malahide, Dublin. Joyce averaged  72 in the ICC Trophy, but Ireland failed to qualify for the World Cup &#8211; but Canada did.<br \/>\nSince then the cricketing fates have diverged, Canada falling to World Cricket League Division 3 last year, whereas Ireland has consistently improved, finally earning Test status.<br \/>\nWe wish the Irish the best of luck tomorrow as they take their first steps in the highest form of cricket- and thank them for showing that with commitment, talent, and a well organized administration providing support, Associate nations can make it to full member status. Their success should form a template for the other associates, like Canada, who aspire to join them.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.espncricinfo.com\/series\/18025\/preview\/1127284\/ireland-vs-pakistan-only-test-pak-ire-eng-scot-2018\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">CricInfo preview<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In July 2001 a half-century from 23 year-old Ed Joyce led Ireland to victory over Canada at the ICC Trophy at G Ross Lord Park, Toronto. 17 years later Ed Joyce is part of an Ireland team that will play Pakistan in Ireland&#8217;s first Test match, starting on Friday at Malahide, Dublin. Joyce averaged 72 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11430"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11430"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11431,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11430\/revisions\/11431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}