BBC SPORT | Cricket | England | Irani half way to World Cup place



By Oliver Brett BBC Sport Online

There is something in Ronnie Irani's character that sets him apart from other cricketers.

It is not that he possesses unique talents - it is more the larger-than-life presence he lends to a cricket field.

County cricket, as we well know, struggles to attract much sustained interest these days.

But if there were more Iranis out there playing at Swansea, Blackpool and Leicester week in, week out it would rival Premiership football for appeal value.

Irani was helped out by Stewart at the Oval

Ronnie's unbridled joie-de-vivre lights up a county game like nothing else, so much so that he often cops a fair amount of stick from opposing fans.

He chatters to players on either team non-stop on the field, and dominates the square in his follow-thorugh as he bowls, creating an unwelcome obstacle for batsmen to run round as they scamper quick singles.

And he does things no differently in international cricket.

If his form does hold up long enough for him to be a regular player at the World Cup, the tournament organisers will presumably be delighted to welcome one of the game's 'faces.'

And even if he has a few quiet matches, after achieving the best-ever bowling figures by an Englishman on home soil, Irani's name is surely pencilled in at the very least.

If teams such as Australia and South Africa do their homework, however, his bowling may not be quite as devilish as it has been in England this summer.

Alec Stewart stands up to Irani's bowling - and as a result the batsmen are shackled to their crease.

Only the likes of Sachin Tendulkar and Sanath Jayasuriya are able to manufacture cross-batted shots off his admirable line-and-length bowling.

One cannot see the likes of Chris Cairns and Adam Gilchrist being tied down by Irani, either, and they may even risk advancing down the track to the Essex captain.

How will Gilchrist fare against Irani?

What is peculiar about Irani's success with the ball in this series is that he has done a completely different job as a bowler for Essex in his county's successful one-day season.

At Chelmsford, he takes the new ball, with Andy Flower standing back.

As a genuine strike bowler, he then allows the likes of John Stephenson and Jon Dakin to bowl the middle orders with a defensive field.

For England, he is doing the Stephenson-Dakin job himself, so to speak.

His batting, too, changes in the switch from county to country.

With Essex, he knows his fans expect him to launch into attacking shots early on he has been tremendously successful with this approach for much of the season.

This approach back-fired in the Benson & Hedges Cup final and perhaps as a consequence, Irani has throttled back in the early stages of his innings for England.

There are a lot of ones and twos, but he is still scoring at close to a run-a-ball.

In an interview for BBC Radio, Irani said it would be 'unprofessional' to think of the World Cup at this stage and warned that he would not get 'carried away' with the moment.

Words such as these indicate that somewhere in his ebullient persona is a degree of maturity which one would expect from a 30-year-old whose benefit is earmarked for next summer.