Five reasons Ireland can beat Pakistan

Only one team have ever won their inaugural Test match – Australia in the first Test ever. Zimbabwe are the only other team not to have lost their first Test.

Ireland go into their maiden Test match, which begins against Pakistan on Friday 11 May, as the underdogs. But there is good reason to believe that William Porterfield’s men could break with tradition and pull off an upset in their first five-day game on the big stage. Here’s why:

The conditions
It’s expected to be chilly and rainy, with plenty of nip for the seamers. Those aren’t conditions, especially early in the European summer, that subcontinental teams are immediately familiar with. Ireland hope knowledge of the home conditions will give them an advantage. “You’d be a bit upset if you turned up and it was a flat, dry, slow one!” said Tim Murtagh. “Hopefully the conditions will work in our favour, not just for us bowlers but for the batters playing in seaming conditions, having a bit more experience than maybe the Pakistani guys do.”

Ireland’s experience
Seven Irish players are over 30 years old, and they have plenty of cricket behind them. At 39 years and 231 days, Ed Joyce could be the oldest Test debutant this millennium. Murtagh has more first-class wickets than any non-English Test debutant, while Kevin O’Brien has more ODIs than any Test debutant.

Boyd Rankin has already played a Test, for England, while Joyce too has limited-overs experience with them. Murtagh, Gary Wilson and Paul Stirling are among those currently playing red-ball cricket for county sides. By no means are Ireland coming into this as a raw side.

Players in form
Andrew Balbirnie, Niall O’Brien and Stuart Thompson boast of hundreds against their names in their last first-class outings. Murtagh enjoyed a good start to the county season, his 4/12 for Middlesex under cloudy skies at Lord’s a standout. The likes of Porterfield, Stirling and Kevin O’Brien played crucial knocks during Ireland’s ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifier 2018 campaign in Zimbabwe earlier this year, so confidence should be high in the team.

Pakistan’s struggles
Pakistan come into this match ranked No.7 in the MRF Tyres ICC Test Team Rankings. They named a squad with five uncapped players for this Test and the series to follow in England, with eight others who have played only 20 Tests or fewer. Since veterans Misbah-ul-Haq and Younis Khan retired, the team has struggled to find consistency in their batting. And the hip injury to Yasir Khan, their match-winning spinner, came as another setback.

They struggled in the warm-ups, being bowled out for 168 before Kent got to 209/4 in the first tour match, while the pacers were made to toil in the win against Northamptonshire. Ireland will know they have their weak spots.

Ireland, the giant killers
The men in Irish green have built a reputation for shaking things up at the top levels. In 2007 on St Patrick’s Day, they burst onto the world stage with a remarkable upset of Pakistan in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2007.

In the 2011 edition, Kevin O’Brien’s whirlwind effort in chasing 328 scripted a memorable defeat of England in Bengaluru, while in 2015 they were close to making it to the knock-out stage after wins over Windies, Zimbabwe and UAE. They’ve written unlikely cricketing dramas before – could they do it again?