One of the players in my mighty Chertsey 3XI is also an international. He plays for Switzerland and has played against teams such as France, Austria and Greece.

He's a good bat, and should be in our 1stXI but due to his international commitments his availability has been poor and he frequently gets dropped!! Ha ha ha!

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I'll have the Mouseburger please, with a side of Goldfish.

Its quite interesting actually, but my friends, got to play against Greece too, Greece beat them though, they also got to play against Israel, who I was told were the best team in their group, if that is not heard enough to believe!

Seeing as my parents were born in Italy, it is feasable that I may be able to play Italy one day (citizenship etc...) Would be a thrill, tell you that!!

I played against Italy a couple of years ago!

They were in Ireland for the European Championships and were due to play both Ireland and Holland at our ground so our club 1st team played them in a warm up match.
We won by about 40 runs, there star player was Peter Di Venuto, brother of the Aussie player, he got about 60.
They went on to beat Holland in the Euros but lose to Ireland.

Joe Scuderi, who played for Leicestershire and South Australia is their star player...Hes 37 but still may play next World Cup should Italy qualify.

Scuderi didn't play that day, he is now their coach I think?

Great News Folks

Irish coach Adi Birrell has said he is 90% sure he will have Ed Joyce (Middlesex) and Niall O'Brien (Kent) available for the ICC Trophy - we're a sure thing now!

Check out www.northdowncricketclub.co.uk - the home of the best club in Ireland!

If this is true - and I have no reason to doubt that it is, would this effect Ed Joyce qualifying to play for England, as I've heard mentioned before that he was hoping to qualify. Whilst Gavin Hamilton played for both Scotland and England, these are both in the UK whilst Ireland is a seperate country.... Any ideas if he's given up on the idea of playing for England?

Re Andy

This will not effect his qualifying period which, if i am correct, will be complete by the end of this summer.
Under previous ICC rules it would have, Hamilton was granted special dispensation for the '99 WC, it has been changed like this to help the associate nations.
In fact, the same qualifying rules apply to players of any nationality, eg Pieterson!
Just a small note as i'm not sure everyone knows this; Ireland play cricket as one nation ie The Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland together but I can assure you, the latter is very much part of the UK!!

Cheers for the clarification PI! Its interesting that in rugby and cricket, Ireland means the RoI and Northern Ireland, but in football there are seperate sides.

I know this is a completely seperate issue, but I know there have been problems with people like Neil Lennon in football playing for Celtic and certain football supporters not liking that. The reason i mention this is that I've heard talk that the RoI and NI football teams could be merged! What benefit is there for Northern Ireland in doing this as very seldom will an NI player be good enough to play for a combined team and could this not inflame tensions?
On a completely unrelated topic, are you following the Irish ladies in the world cup?