I'm confused. Anyone who has followed my column will know this happens to me on a regular basis. My confusion is over nationality and eligibility.

Being a simple club cricketer I know that the devil is in the detail. We have been told over the years that as captains we must understand the rule book. Whether you are in the Leinster Cricket Union, North West Cricket Union or the Northern Cricket Union you are supposed to know the rules of the competition and the eligibility requirements. On many different occasions I have picked up the NCU rule book to try to get a handle on the rules but by the end of the first page (there are 33 of them) I have lost the will to live. This year at the AGM the clubs at the behest of the Union voted in the principle that it is the clubs responsibility to ensure the rules are followed. Sounds fair enough except I can't help getting the feeling that the NCU now has a ‘licence to blame' card. If the umpires make a mess or the computer jams during its Duckworth Lewis calculations one gets the feeling that there will be no comeback no matter how unjust.

But although misinterpretation of the rules has caused a lot of problems the vast majority of them have been dealing with rearrangements and the interpretation of starting times.

I can hear Dr Power now saying 'I don't know what your problem is? It's quite clear from page 783 Bye law 37.3 Playing regulation 41 section 16(d) that in the eventuality of the average number of runs scored by a team whose club was founded in the 18th century being divisible by the umpires age less the number of balls faced, added with the no of wickets lost, that the team whose name doesn't start with a D must bowl the first ball no later than 12.15pm in July and August and 10.22 am in September!'

You see what I mean, most of us switch off and just don't really understand why the result can't stand after everyone played a good game of cricket.

But the real administrative disasters have surrounded the eligibility of players. Both Derriaghy and North Down have fallen foul of the eligibility requirements in recent years. Ironically enough they were to do with players not eligible for Ireland playing as local players who are in Ireland for reasons unconnected with cricket. The case of Peter Connell was particularly bizarre. From the outside looking in it seemed to be the sort of thing you would see in the Grand Opera House with May McFettridge.

‘He's not Irish',
‘Oh yes he is',
‘Oh no he isn't'
‘Oh yes he is'
‘Oh no he isn't'.

Finally the NCU resolved the crisis by deciding in their wisdom that he wasn't Irish in April, May and June but he was Irish in July, August and September!

I kid you not, no seriously, you couldn't make this up. He apparently became Irish for the game at Stormont against CSNI.

North Down were stripped of their cup wins for playing an ineligible player and subsequently lost all the league points when Peter Connell wasn't Irish, but were allowed to keep all their league points when he was Irish. Which was nice of the NCU. Bless.

This neatly leads me on to Ed Joyce. Now Ed is about as Irish as it gets and about as good a cricketer as Ireland have ever produced in their long proud history.

In my mind he is the forgotten hero of the Ireland World Cup adventure because without the mercurial skills of Ed Joyce's batting Ireland would have been nowhere near the Caribbean last year. He almost single handed batted Ireland into qualification in 2005. The talent of the Irish side was not in question but after disastrous campaigns in previous qualifiers the doubts were there and the belief was suspect but Joyce carried them to the finals. The side gloriously displayed their talent to the World in 2007 and it was the cruellest of ironies that Ed wasn't there to enjoy it. Well actually he was there but by this time Ed was English.

Ed Joyce made his ODI debut at Stormont, versus, yes you've guessed it, Ireland where he played against his still very much Irish brother Dominic. I kid you not, you couldn't make this up. Now whilst this must have been confusing for the Joyce family, spare a thought for me as I am still reeling from the fact that the ICC says that Ed can't be Irish again for 4 years.

Now I've personally never liked playing at Stormont as I always thought of it as a completely soulless place. But it appears to be worse than that for unsuspecting travellers, as it can change your nationality as well! The good news is that Nigel Jones and Regan West who play for CSNI at Stormont have magically been changed from New Zealanders to Irish and with a bit of luck the ground will cast its spell on Ewan Thompson as well and we will all have something to cheer about.

However let's get back to the source of my confusion. The ICC qualifying tournament in 2005 was part of the same World Cricket Cup competition. No competition anywhere in the world allows a player to play in a Cup game for one team and switch to another team in the latter stages. So why are England allowed to take the pick of our best players yet we can't have them back when they don't want them anymore.

I am not asking the readers to quote me the regulations allowing them to do so as I am well aware of them. I am simply pointing out the absurdity of the situation. Ireland played England during the last World Cup where our very best cricketer was playing against us.

It's bad enough that I am confused but I am now getting paranoid. Is it so far fetched to imagine that if Ireland qualify for the next World Cup and are drawn in the same group as England that all they need to do to ensure there are no upsets, is to pick Eoin Morgan, Niall O'Brien, and Boyd Rankin in some meaningless A International thus making them ineligible for the World Cup?

Or if the ICC decides we are becoming too big for our boots then they could scupper any chance we have of qualifying by getting England to pick them before the qualifiers?

No, that is too far fetched. Why would the ICC want the Associate nations to fail? After all if you wanted that to happen you would set exacting standards, set up a punishing schedule with long periods away from home and then starve them of money! And the ICC would never do that, would they?