The games saw several of those players who were apparently outside the first XI make strong bids for elevation, none more so than Kenny Carroll of Railway Union who made an unbeaten 100 in the second game. Birrell was happy with the headache: "Kenny continues to impress, and I'm delighted for him. It's the result of hard work put in over the last few years, and his time at the ICC Training Camp has taken his game to a completely new level. It gives me plenty of options both at the top and in the middle of the order."

There were also plenty of runs - 43, 89 and 89 - for Jeremy Bray, the only member of the squad to spend his winter down under. Bray returned home to play first grade for Sydney side UTSBalmain, for whom he scored 313 runs in 11 games, with a best of 90.

The team move on to Nairobi for what some see as the most important part of the winter's action - even more than the World Cup. The ICC World Cricket League pits Ireland against its fellow nontest qualifiers for the World Cup, with two huge prizes at stake.

The $250,000 prize money is not to be sniffed at in a very expensive year for both the union and the players, but even more important are the two qualifying slots for the first Twenty20 world championship, to be held in South Africa in September.

Ireland captain Trent Johnston believes it is vital that the momentum from the World Cup be continued on into the succeeding international tournaments and it is thus vital that Ireland start strongly against the old enemy Scotland on Wednesday to ensure we reach the final on Wednesday week.

The players will need to be at peak fitness for the alien conditions they will find in Kenya. The Scots are at an advantage, having been playing in the country for the last fortnight - some of their players lost 5kg during one 50 over game.

Ireland's fixtures: Tuesday: v Scotland, Wednesday: v Bermuda, Friday: v Kenya, Sunday: v Canada, Monday: v Netherlands; 7 February: Final.

A new tranche of World Cup ticketswill go on sale on Wednesday, 1 February. There have been many tales emerging from the Caribbean that a minor disaster is looming, due to an unwieldy visa system and overpriced tickets and hotels.

Tickets for Ireland's games against Pakistan and Zimbabwe are easy to come by but there are only a handful left for the game against the host. Tickets for the West Indies game are $90, $55 and $20, or $80 for the party stand. For the other games they are $50, $30, $15 and $50. Details on www. cricketworldcup. com/Tickets. html TThis weekend sees the first indoor cricket intervarsities competition, with NUI Galway's pioneering invitation being taken up by seven other colleges. The club of what used to be known as UCG was reformed in 2002 by Merrion's Lucy Crockford and have been steadily improving in the senior intervarsities, reaching the semi-finals in 2006. The hosts will be strong favourites to win the title today, having great experience in the indoor game thanks to a six team internal league which runs through the winter.

The club features players from every Test nation except the West Indies - but including the Maldives - and has sparked an incredible revival in student cricket in the West. No less than four of the eight competing sides this weekend are from Connacht colleges - the others are the ITs in Sligo, Galway/Mayo and Athlone - with the numbers being made up by Trinity, UCD, DCU and Waterford. While Trinity might have expected to be favourites, the draw allotted them two 9am fixtures, which rarely finds them at their best. Games go on all day today at the sports halls in NUIG and GMIT, with the final at 5.15pm.

Signs that there's a new wind blowing for Irish cricket (No.3):

The hard-to-satisfy young women of the Tribune Magazine this week select the twenty sexiest Irish sportsmen.

There, alongside Donnacha O'Callaghan and the O hAilpin brothers is Ed Joyce.

I don't think it would have happened in Dermott Monteith's day. Check out the abs and pecs on Pages 8 and 9.

Signs that there's a still a long way to go (No.3): Joyce's excellent 47 against New Zealand was forgotten with his untimely pull off Brett Lee on Friday. The words 'Irishman', which had been missing from the reports of Tuesday's game, returned with a vengeance this weekend. England have been hapless as a whole, but the former Ireland batsman told the Sunday Tribune that "it just needs a couple of big performances from a few of us to pull it round. I feel in good nick so hopefully it'll be me!" A World Cup selection-clinching performance is just one good day away.

The bookshelf marked 'Irish cricket' is starting to fill up in bookstores. The latest addition is a phenomenal 420 page history of cricket in Co Kilkenny. While the summer game has all but collapsed in the county, local GAA historian Michael O'Dwyer has traced a glorious past when more than 200 clubs were active. It is comfortably the most detailed history of a cricket community ever produced in this country and will be of enormous interest to supporters in that part of the country. Coming after Pat Bracken's monumental history of cricket in Tipperary, it is heartening to see that the game's past is not being neglected.

Days to the World Cup: 46Wicketkeeper Ossie Colhoun was not out 46 times out of 89 innings for Ireland. Even with this statistical advantage he averaged just 6.88 with the bat.