The May Bank Holiday is when the organisers of the Marathon try to delude people into thinking that running for 26 miles in the freezing cold and the pouring rain looking at the streets of Belfast is good fun. Already there is a backlog of fixtures in the local cricket leagues with some clubs yet to play a game.

However for our International cricketers they have already racked up 13 fixtures in the calendar year. Ireland compete now in the FP Trophy which guarantees them 8 fixtures against full time professional cricketers. Five more games in this competition will be followed by the ICC Twenty/20 World Cup with 2 warm up games and 2 Group matches. Three other T20 Internationals are scheduled, four ODI's with Scotland, Namibia and England as well as all the other ICC Intercontinental cup matches.

I look forward to these games because it is always good to know where Ireland stands in relation to their peers. However there is little here to whet the appetite with the exception of the England game come August. The West Indies are in the UK at present and Australia are also on these shores and it would have been great to see Ireland playing these countries during the summer.

Fixtures against Namibia and Scotland are all very well but how relevant will these games be to the appeal of the sport on our island. I very much fear that come August that many of our County based players will not be available for those fixtures, not unless there is a three line whip ensuring the team selected to face England is picked from the same squad. A couple of defeats to Scotland with a weakened team will do little for ticket sales against England. There is also the irony that England will be returning to these shores with the possibility that Eoin Morgan will be in their side to play against Ireland.

Three years ago they arrived at Stormont showing off their new signing, a chap called Ed Joyce who also had recently helped Ireland qualify for a World Cup. There is every chance that England will pick Eoin for the fixture as a little 'treat' for the locals to show them that one of their own can reach the top. How patronising would that be?

Then there is the other possibility. By the time August comes around England will have selected and discarded Eoin Morgan as not good enough on the basis of a couple of quick looks. He should have no illusions of how well he needs to do to stay in the team if Ed Joyce's experiences are anything to go by. If he is discarded by August he will of course be unable to turn out for Ireland. Certainly reduces the chance of an upset and there will be plenty of Ireland fans who would be far from impressed by the whole episode both with England and Morgan.

Morgan insisted on leaving Ireland before one of their biggest ever games despite being cleared by Middlesex for the whole WCQ competition. Having been selected for England just a few days later I wonder how that decision sits with him now. The WCQ final against Canada would have been a much higher profile game than some dreary pre-season game for Middlesex. There was substantial prize money on the line for the winners of that fixture and of course there was sense of responsibilities to your own team mates.

The need to acclimatise to local conditions which some supporters alluded to as an excuse is derisory. The man grew up playing cricket in Ireland for goodness sake. When you think about it, there is little difference to Eoin Morgan's situation than Niall O'Brien's. It is not too difficult to see a scenario where O'Brien is picked for England in the not too distant future. Yet O'Brien stayed to the end with his team mates.

Shortly after the England team was announced there was a debate on Talk Sport Radio with Adrian Durham and Darren Gough about the availability of Arsenal goalkeeper Manuel Almunia for England. Gough who found no problems with this pointed to Kevin Pieterson and the recent selection of Eoin Morgan who played for Ireland in the World Cup qualifiers. It led to an interesting exchange of views. Plain talking Durham was against selection of the Spanish goalkeeper but was completely mystified by the selection of Morgan weeks after playing for Ireland.

‘How does that work?' asks Durham.

‘Well Ireland don't play Test cricket so Morgan can play for England' explains Gough.

‘But he hasn't been picked for a Test match he's been picked for a One Day game for England. Does Ireland not play One Day Internationals?'

'They do', says Gough.

'Were they not playing One Day Internationals in South Africa qualifying for the World Cup?' asks Durham.

‘They were,' says Gough.

‘So how can he play for England?' asked Durham.

‘He just can' says Gough.

‘Well that's just beyond my comprehension' says Durham.

Mine too Adrian, mine too. But I will say one thing. When it comes to making nonsensical rules by the governing administrators, cricket sets the standard.