There aren’t many teams that aren’t allowed to lose. Real Madrid, Barcelona, and until recently Manchester United, might be in that category. Even in cricket we have witnessed periods of great supremacy from the great West Indies teams of the Clive Lloyd/Vivian Richards era, the mighty Australians under several captains in the past 20 years and of course until this winter, the England test team. But I doubt if any of those teams has lived with the burden of expectation that is continuously heaped on the current Ireland cricket team!

Barely two weeks ago Ireland beat the Twenty20 world champions West Indies in their own back yard and were then a little unlucky not to repeat the victory two days later. Roll on two weeks and a couple of World Cup warm-up defeats against Worcestershire and Hong Kong and some critics are throwing the toys out of the pram.

The fact is we can’t win every game and in the case of 20-overs cricket we are just as vulnerable to a lesser team as the world champions are to teams like Ireland. And who has created the monkey on our backs? Our own players! These guys are human and while they have climbed mountains in pursuit of excellence they also have their off days and we have to accept in sport that there will always be winners and losers. Some days we win and some days we lose, but when we look back our success is measured over a number of games not on a one-off performance.

On Sunday in the Press Box at the Kensington Oval I was greeted by my old friend Joseph “Reds” Perreira the veteran West Indies cricket commentator. The jovial and highly respected cricket guru honed in on my Cricket Ireland shirt and said “We (West Indies) can beat England at Twenty20, but we can’t beat Ireland!”

And therein lies the impact big wins have in the cricket world. Warm-up defeats against teams like Hong Kong will be quickly erased from most people’s memories but wins over West Indies, England and Pakistan will never be forgotten in Irish cricket and further afield. We have earned international status and as much as the big guns are there to be taken, Ireland has their own banana skins these days, as every Associate Cricket nation wants our scalp. Hong Kong will live on their success for a long time, but there are bigger fish to fry for Ireland and there can be no bigger stage to show our mettle than at the Twenty20 World Cup.

The reality is that we have nothing to lose and on our day we know we can topple a big nation. But in comparison to years gone by, the big names know a lot more about us these days and they won’t be taking us for granted. Ireland are playing cup finals every time they take the field and whether it is against a minnow in a warm-up game or a test nation in the tournament we all want them to win and with that desire comes the burden of expectation.

Let’s give Phil Simmons and his squad the respect they deserve and see defeats in the warm-up matches as blips on the road rather than craters. The focus is on the competitive matches and that’s where Ireland will be judged by all and sundry. The countdown is on for the World Twenty20 Cup and let’s not lose sight of the fact that the West Indies have just beaten England and Ireland beat the West Indies. That must mean something to people in the know and amongst them are guys like “Reds” Perreira who has built up a healthy respect for Irish cricket in the past decade.