I have spent the vast majority of the past four months broadcasting on and writing about the Irish General Election for Newstalk 106-108 FM. One of my roles was to do a reality check on the promises made by the various parties in their manifestos. In other words I was attempting to differentiate between spin and reality.

Therefore when I sat down to watch the Associates, particularly Ireland, in the final qualifying round of the World T20 Cup the only spin I was interested in was the type that ties the batsman in knots.

Unfortunately I encountered spin that would have been the envy of any politician. Most of this was generated as a result of Ireland’s defeat at the hands of Oman. It came from a mixture of sources such as commentators, pundits and the Ireland camp.

The commentators focused on the problems the Ireland bowlers had with the dew which they believed was a major factor in their defeat. However as we have become accustomed to, the commentators who are assigned to Associate matches appear to be selected because of their lack of knowledge on the players and teams that they are covering.

They seemed to forget that Ireland had chosen to bowl last but it is questionable that dew was even a factor at all. In bowling the nineteenth over of the Oman innings Boyd Rankin delivered his best six balls of the tournament while Max Sorensen, despite his game defining beamers, also was able to produce three perfect balls in the game’s final over. It is difficult to argue that dew was an issue and quite frankly it was, as Ed Joyce described it on Sky Sports, the result of pressure.

Pressure was the main theme taken up by the studio analysts and the Ireland management. There is no doubt that the Associate nations are treated very badly by ICC in terms of more matches against the ten test nations. However to put forward the proposition that not having sufficient opportunities to deal with tight finishes was a factor in this result is to produce more spin than our designated slow bowlers can ever produce.

This argument was about the team that over the past decade has been the most successful in the history of Associate cricket across all formats. This after all was the team that from its defeat against Namibia in March 2012 in the first match of the World T20 Qualifier in the UAE until the stunning reversal against the Dutch in Sylhet two years later won 22 successive matches against fellow Associates. For good measure they won two T20 trophies and also beat West Indies, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe in the format as well during this period. Since and including the Sylhet defeat Ireland has played 17 completed T20 matches against Associates and has won on just 7 occasions. Five of their ten defeats were on home soil last summer.

The team that were not used to the pressure should have been Oman but in this format it is Ireland who is succumbing too readily and too regularly. The soft analysis would point to the change of coach as the catalyst for the decline in fortune for Ireland. However I feel that this is too simplistic an answer and there are other factors at play here that better explain the decline.

In all probability the biggest factor is the continued reliance on the same group of players across all three formats over an extended period of time. For example four years ago in March 2012 Ireland won the World T20 Qualifier in Dubai comfortably defeating Afghanistan in the final. Eight of that team played in the most recent defeat against the Dutch in India. Indeed it would have probably have been nine if Niall O’Brien had not been persona non grata with Phil Simmons at the time. It is also likely that two of the three missing players, Ed Joyce, Trent Johnston and Andrew White, would still be in the team other than for retirement (in Joyce’s case from the format).

The reality is that the players are four years older and the failure to put trust in younger viable replacements is, I believe, inhibiting the future prospects of Ireland in the limited overs format. Arguably it matters little about T20 at international level for Associates as the next relevant tournament is probably going to be the 2020 qualifiers which presumably will be held in 2019. Many of the last squad are unlikely to play in T20I’s again.

However there is no doubt that both 50 over and red ball cricket have been impacted by the dramatic development of T20. New skills with both bat and ball practised in that format have clearly begun to transfer to the longer formats. It is not so long ago that 260 was perceived to be a virtually unbeatable score in 50 over matches. Now, unless there is adverse conditions, 300+ is regularly chased down. Indeed Ireland has achieved that feat three times in the finals of World Cups.

The problem that the Ireland batsmen have is that while a run a ball strike rate is excellent in 50 over matches it is inconsequential in T20. Even at a strike rate of 120 this would equate to a team total of 144 which is often insufficient to win. Yet of the current Ireland players who have scored a minimum of 100 runs in T20I’s, only Paul Stirling with 128 is better than 120 and he has only had three innings in excess of 30 in his last 20 attempts.

Three of our fellow Associates, Afghanistan (6), Netherlands (4) and Scotland (4) all have more current batsmen than Ireland who can boast strike rates in excess of 120.

There is little doubt that we have lost our standing as the leading Associate in this format and given the absence of fixtures in the foreseeable future that is unlikely to change.

The two key formats are the 4 day game and the 50 over contests. Ireland is still by some distance the leading Associate in the longest form and unless they implode should again win the Intercontinental Cup thereby challenging Zimbabwe in 2018 to determine if Test status can be obtained.

Things are not as clear cut in the 50 over format. It is just over a year ago that Ireland demonstrated emphatically that they were the leading Associates in this format when they narrowly failed to qualify for the knockout stage despite winning three games. Yet a year later Afghanistan is now a point ahead of Ireland in the 12 team ICC ranking table. This is largely as a result of the Afghans beating Zimbabwe 5 times out of 9 in Zimbabwe in just over a year while Ireland could only manage one win out of three in Harare last October.

The fact that both Afghanistan and Ireland are ahead of Zimbabwe in the ranking table looks good for Associate cricket but it potentially creates a real problem for Ireland. At the end of the current cycle of fixtures in 2018 the lowest ranked Associate in the ranking table will have to play off against the winners of the World Cricket League with the place on the ranking table at stake.

Even if Ireland and Afghanistan were first and second on the current ranking table ahead of all ten Full Members, the lower ranked of the two Associates would still be in the play-off. Ah ICC the champions of meritocracy!!

Ireland has six ODI’s against FM’s this year but unless they edge ahead of Afghanistan by 2018 then they will have to win the play-off for these fixtures will dry up and Ireland will be left in a similar position to Scotland and Netherlands, the captains of whom very eloquently explained their plight on their elimination from the World T20.

In some ways Ireland were almost too successful for their long term good during the Simmon’s era. Other than through retirements it was very difficult for new players to break into the team as Phil operated on the basis of loyalty which he argued, with good reason, that this had been the basis of success.

The gap between the established players and the next generation is vast which has resulted in little real pressure on the older brigade to up their game. The T20 format may not be relevant for the foreseeable future but some of the elements portrayed by Ireland in the past year are a concern in relation to the other formats. Contagion is a word generally bandied about when the economy, particularly in relation to Europe, is under discussion. My concern is that there will be contagion from Ireland’s T20 displays spreading to 50 over and red ball cricket.

Adi Birrell was the architect of Ireland’s rise to the top of the Associate tree and led to the capacity to challenge FM’s. He argued that while bigger teams will probably have better batters and bowlers there was no reason that Ireland could not out field them. Ireland certainly did that and got great recognition for that at World Cup level. William Porterfield ranked as one of the best fielders in world cricket as he led from the front.

Both in the qualifiers last summer and in India the standard of fielding plummeted from the previous levels. Straightforward catches were put down and there were numerous examples of sloppy ground fielding. Maybe it is a question of, as John Bracewell argued, players trying too hard. But these are mostly very experienced players who have overcome far greater challenges than Oman or Netherlands. The speed of the game may now be catching some of the more senior players out. It will probably not be an issue in the Intercontinental Cup as the opponents rarely play that format while the majority of the Ireland players play county cricket.

However the ODI matches against Sri Lanka, Pakistan, South Africa and Australia in the next few months will be difficult enough without gifting our opponents 20 or 30 runs in each game through missed catches or poor fielding.

The same problem remains in regard to blooding new players. Bracewell will not want to leave out experienced players because he will probably believe that it will weaken his prospect o0f winning matches. However no other mechanism exists for blooding new players in a genuinely competitive environment. There have been promises of more A team matches but even should they materialise they would be pointless if they replicate the bad old days of social cricket.

Ireland complains with some justification about the lack of fixtures against stronger teams which would be geared to increase their competitiveness. Maybe it is time that Ireland looked in the other direction and helped fellow Associates such as Scotland, Netherlands etc who struggle to get meaningful matches against stronger sides. This could be a vehicle to blood promising new players while still providing a competitive edge. There is always the risk that a series of poor results in the games designated as ODI’s could mean that we don’t overtake Afghanistan but so be it. If we cannot develop new players it won’t matter anyway as the days of the golden generation are numbered.

Finally it was great to see Phil Simmons lead the West Indies to a World Cup at the first time of asking. This despite having to deal with a Board that makes ICC look good. From the comments of Darren Sammy it appears that as he did for Ireland Phil has been able to generate a team spirit that can overcome adversity despite the odds.