The Ireland cricket team is a national cricket team, representing both political entities on the island of Ireland - the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Due to political difficulties, the Irish Cricket Union was not elected to the International Cricket Council until 1993, and qualified for the World Cup for the first time in 2007.

However, cricket has been played in Ireland since at least the 1880s - including a tour of North America in 1888. Their first match with first-class status was played in 1902 against a London County side including W.G.Grace. The Irish won convincingly, by 238 runs.





A Northern Ireland team, composed only of players born in Northern Ireland, played three matches at the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. They beat Bangladesh but lost to South Africa and Barbados, thus not progressing from their group.

After the 1902 tour of England, where four matches yielded one win, two draws and one loss, the Irish didn't play first-class cricket again for five years (although London County visited again in 1903 and drew). The Irish were soundly beaten on home soil, by Yorkshire and South Africa, suggesting that there was still quite a gap in class.





Ireland's first ODI win came against Scotland in August 2006. In 2006, Ireland won the European Championship. Before this, it had also won the Intercontinental Cup in 2005. Some of the players who have made some mark in Ireland's brief acquaintance with international cricket are Andre Botha and Dave Langford-Smith. Ireland's enthusiasm in the 2007 World Cup does not commensurate with their experience in international cricket.

Their first World Cup will start in March, and they will hope to progress to the next stage, as they will be playing two teams they have beaten in recent years, The West Indies and Zimbabwe. Pakistan are the other team in their group. The enriching experience of playing against the top teams in the world should take ascendancy over everything else, for the Ireland Team in the 2007 World Cup.