The fans will have no excuse as almost all the rest of the Caribbean heroes will be in action with the return of Andre Botha and Dave Langford-Smith from injury and of Eoin Morgan from county duty. With the prospect of seeing a resurgent Ireland and players of the calibre of Fidel Edwards (right) and Chris Gayle, Clontarf is the place to be next weekend.

One player likely to be seen in the green before too long . . .

unless he is lost to the county scene . . . is 16-year-old Paul Stirling of Cliftonville, who scored 116 on his U23 debut against Scotland last week. Stirling thus added a European champions medal to those he won at U15, U17 and U19 last year. He has been playing senior cricket since he was 12 and made two centuries and a 99 in the U19 championships, when he was four years younger than many of his opponents and team-mates.

"It was a great day", Stirling told Inside Edge yesterday, before modestly playing down his chances of further elevation this summer. The son of former top rugby referee Brian, Paul spent three days at Lord's last winter and expects to play a few games for Middlesex this summer.

The Irish women are in England this weekend for a short tour which sees them play Sussex and MCC. The games will help coach Miriam Grealey assess her players ahead of the Europeans and ICC Trophy later in the year.

Cecilia Joyce is back in the fold and sister Isobel could be back by 1 August, cutoff point for selection for the European Championship in Holland.

Claire Shillington has also returned. "The team have done suprisingly well in the men's Leinster League, " Grealey said, "we've won five out of seven games despite being promoted last year and it has been a real team performance. The middle order bats like Nikki Coffey, Emer Richardson and Elaine Nolan have all stepped up and done well."

Grealey is confident that Ireland could beat England for the first time since 2001, but all eyes will be on Lahore in November and the ICC Trophy, when it will be necessary to overcome hosts Pakistan to qualify for a sixth successive World Cup. "It's getting harder to compete with the resources of teams like Pakistan and South Africa, who tour every year, and even Scotland who are now in the English championship, " she explains. Joining the English pyramid has been requested . . . and rejected . . . for several years but it is now a strong possibility that Ireland will be admitted to Division Four. Regular competition will help Ireland move forward in the fastest growing women's sport in the world.

All's well at Castle Avenue after the ICC-inspired scare last weekend. The new regulations on ground dimensions do not apply to existing international grounds, a fact omitted from their statements and replies to queries.

Tickets for theClontarf ODIs are available online on www. irishcricket. org, and we have two adult tickets for next Saturday's Ireland v West Indies game to give away.

They will go to the first drawn out of our electronic hat at 5pm tomorrow who correctly answers 'Who scored a World Cup century for West Indies against Ireland?'

Email entries to the address below.

gsiggins@tribune. ie