CRICKET/Ireland v Yorkshire: It has been a strange week or so for Johan Botha. Last Wednesday he was performing in front of 20,000 people at the final of the Pro20 Cup in Centurion, one of the world's great cricketing stages. Then, three days after leaving the 25-degree heat of his native South Africa, he was to be found shivering in the drizzle at CYM, which may be one of the friendliest cricket clubs around but, well, it ain't Centurion.
Yesterday, he celebrated his 23rd birthday and then today he will represent a country he has lived in for just a few short days in the C&G Trophy against Yorkshire at Stormont.
His fortunes in Ireland have been mixed so far. He scored just four runs and looked out of sorts in CYM on Saturday but a brilliant run-out and a bowling spell that yielded four wickets made it a satisfactory day for Botha and his new club Malahide.
He has had a good season for Eastern Cape this year and an even better one for Border, the side he plays for in the SA amateur leagues.
Averaging nearly 50 with the bat and 27 with the ball is a good effort in anyone's language but today is all about one-day cricket, a form of the game that has not been so kind to him of late.
"I am just hoping to do well for Ireland and for Adi (Birrell, Ireland's national coach)," he said. Birrell saw plenty of Botha while coach of Eastern Province and although it is thought that Birrell's first-choice overseas player for this match was Brigade's prolific Wajahatullah Wasti (who has since returned to Pakistan for personal reasons), Birrell is clearly confident of Botha's ability. A victory against Yorkshire like the one against Surrey last year would give the side a huge boost as they gear up for the ICC Trophy in July.
It's not going to be easy. The Headingly side have brought over a strong team that includes five Test players: England captain Michael Vaughan, Matthew Hoggard, Anthony McGrath, Craig White and Richard Dawson. Add to that Australian Ian Harvey, who scored 209 not out in the County Championship a week ago, and you have a pretty impressive line-up.
Play in Stormont today gets under way at 10.45am.
Meanwhile, in club cricket yesterday, Leinster registered their first win of the season over Old Belvedere thanks to a maiden senior 100 from Gavin Gilmore.
In Castle Avenue, Greg Molins led Clontarf to victory over Merrion in the last over of the game after rain had reduced the number of overs to 27 per side.
IRELAND (from): J Molins (capt), J Bray (wk), P Gillespie, A Botha, J Botha, T Johnston, D Joyce, A McCoubrey, E Morgan, G Cooke, J Mooney, K McCallan.
YORKSHIRE (from): M Wood, I Harvey, P Jaques, M Lumb, A McGrath, C White (capt), R Pyrah, M Vaughan, I Dawood (wk), R Dawson, T Bresnan, D Kruis, M Hoggard.
