What does this series mean for Ireland? Apart from the television rights money that will benefit the Irish Cricket Union, it will be their second one-dayer at home. The match versus India will not only be their 18th ODI, but an ODI they were waiting to play, having met, and played well, against almost all top countries before this.Where were Ireland playing in the interim? They were tackling one-dayers in Ayr, Nairobi, Jamaica, Guyana, Barbados and Grenada, against every Test and high performance nation in the world. The Irish bile comes in quickly, a scribe pointing out how the ECB was not allowing the glamour game to happen in the first place. The elation is not only because of the Irish game, but also for the India-South Africa ODIs that follow. The Irish Cricket Union (ICU) has priced tickets for the five matches as follows. Twenty five pounds for ICU members, £35 for the general adult, £15 for under-16s and £10 for school allocation. Decent prices for top-notch ODIs, one must say.And who are they waiting for? “The world’s best batsman Sachin Tendulkar” and Rahul Dravid and also Soarav Ganguly, a squad that is “among the most entertaining in world cricket” and “for the Ireland players to get a chance to test themselves against this quality, is something the ICU could not deny them.”That is the level of interest in Belfast. That is the level of expectation. It will certainly not be a cakewalk, even off the field for Indians.
