The veteran Ireland seamer talks to Taha Hashim about an international career like no other.
A player turning out against his former side in international cricket? Unexpected, but very much possible.
When England take on Ireland later this week at the Ageas Bowl, Eoin Morgan will be back in front of the side it all began with. In the visitors’ touring party is the beanpole 6ft 8in quick Boyd Rankin, once upon a time an adopted Englishman.
Having made his international debut in 2003, Rankin was part of Ireland’s giant-killing squads at the 2007 and 2011 50-over World Cups. He then switched allegiances to England in the hopes of fulfilling his Test ambitions, with his ODI and T20I debuts for his new side in 2013 followed by a solitary England Test cap at the start of 2014 against Australia. In 2016, he rejoined Ireland.
Here, speaking to Wisden’s Taha Hashim, Rankin tells of his and Ireland’s international journey over the last 13 years, via four England-Ireland contests.
England v Ireland, 2007 Cricket World Cup, Super Eight
Guyana National Stadium, March 30, 2007
Irish cricket made its first big splash at the 2007 Cricket World Cup, with Pakistan defeated by three wickets on St. Patrick’s Day. Rankin, an up-and-comer with Derbyshire, impressed with 12 wickets in the tournament, and came up against a few of his heroes in the Super Eight stage…
“It was a great experience, firstly just being at the World Cup. I played for Derbyshire in the 2006 season and then off the back of that, I was offered a full-time contract for the 2007 season. A lot of us were amateurs so we were just enjoying every game, enjoying the experience of being there, and we got a lot of confidence off that [Pakistan] win. We tied against Zimbabwe as well so we came into the Super Eights feeling good.
“I managed to pick up a couple of early wickets: Ed Joyce being one of them, with my first ball, and Michael Vaughan. It was obviously special for me, as someone who grew up watching the likes of those players. In terms of the match itself, we restricted them pretty well and got off to a reasonable start. We had our opportunities, but England came out on top. I remember coming out at the back-end with Freddie Flintoff bowling a couple of decent yorkers that cleaned up a few batsmen. It was a great experience to play against England; it was only a few years previous that I was watching them in that famous 2005 Ashes. It was a really special day.”
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Rankin celebrates dismissing Michael Vaughan[/caption]
England v Ireland, 2011 Cricket World Cup, Group B
Chinnaswamy Stadium, March 2, 2011
Four years on, an Ireland side – emboldened by the introduction of professional contracts – made headlines once more. This time, England were the victims.
Rankin – by then at Warwickshire – found it tough going as England posted 327-8 at the Chinnaswamy Stadium, and at 111-5 in reply, an upset seemed out of the question. Cue Kevin O’Brien and the fastest World Cup century ever…
“It was a big tournament for us because we knew that to try and keep getting better and go up the rankings, we needed to beat some of the teams there and keep the pressure on the ICC.
“I wouldn’t want to bowl too many times at Bangalore. It’s a pretty flat wicket and small ground. We knew it was going to be tough and from our point we were just trying to keep it down to a total we could chase. It was a high-scoring game, and if you hit it cleanly the ball seemed to fly a lot farther than it would in other stadiums.
“Five down, we were trying to rebuild at that point. I don’t think there were too many guys that would have backed us to come back from that position, but Kevvie started going and he had good support from Alex Cusack. You never think you’re gonna win it till you’ve scored those last runs – I remember John [Mooney] hitting that last four to seal the victory – but I suppose once Kevvie got his hundred and we were chasing well below 100, with a couple of good batters to come in, we knew we had a great opportunity.
“We went back to the hotel and a load of supporters came back, and we had a decent number of drinks at the bar. I do remember a couple of England lads coming down to the bar to have a drink with us: Andrew Strauss and Paul Collingwood. That was pretty decent of them, and I remember it was Strauss’ birthday at the time and everyone started singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to him. It was a bit strange and I’m sure he wanted to dig a hole and get away from it, but he was stuck in the middle of the Irish players and supporters. One pint led to another and he took it very well to be fair to him.
“For us, as a smaller nation, trying to aim to be a Full Member and play Test cricket and regular white-ball cricket, it was massive on the back of those wins at the 2007 World Cup. It showed that it wasn’t a flash in the pan, it wasn’t a one-off. We’d beaten Pakistan and Bangladesh in 2007, we’d beaten England in 2011, so we were trying to make our mark and show the world that we were belonging at the top table.”
Ireland v England, only ODI
The Village, September 3, 2013
In pursuit of a Test cap, Rankin was on the English side in this contest, making his second ODI debut in front of nearly 10,000 people at Malahide. It was an entertaining affair, with a four-wicket haul from Rankin followed up by unbeaten tons from Eoin Morgan and Ravi Bopara after England were reduced to 48-4 in a chase of 270…
“I knew all the Irish lads, and in many ways I felt like I was in a dream. It was a dream come true that I made my debut for England because my aspirations at that time were to try and play Test cricket, and that was the pinnacle. My family were down – probably half of them were wearing Ireland shirts and maybe one or two might have been wearing an England shirt.
“I managed to pick up a few wickets and we were struggling at one point while chasing. Eoin Morgan, of course another fellow Irishman, and Ravi Bopara manage to pull it back and win the game. It was a great day, not only for myself, but for Irish cricket as well because with two Irish players in the [England] team, it just showed the world that Irish cricket can produce a lot of good players. It helped in the grand scheme of things to portray how good Irish cricket is.
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Rankin celebrates a wicket against Ireland[/caption]
“I’d played at that ground so many times before and there were a lot of Irish fans there, I got plenty of friendly banter from the crowd; there was nothing untoward about it. It was just a very strange occasion for me as I could see people in the ground I’d grown up and played cricket with. To then be there playing for England against Ireland, it was a really weird day.”
England v Ireland, only Test
Lord’s, July 24-26, 2019
Rankin did make his Test debut for England, but there was little glory. In the final match of the 2013/14 Ashes, Peter Siddle was his only wicket as a shoulder injury troubled him over the course of the game.
That tour was the end of his time with England, but two years later he returned for Ireland, and in 2018, Rankin was part of the line-up that took on Pakistan in the country’s first-ever men’s Test. A year later, he was at Lord’s and part of the attack that bowled England out for 85 before lunch…
“I thought once that chance had gone with England, I wouldn’t have that opportunity [to play Test cricket] again. I was hoping at some point that Ireland would get Test-match status but I never dreamt that it would come that quickly. It came quicker than anyone expected. It was strange again in terms of playing against England, because up to that point I’d played with a lot of those England players, whether with England or with my county.
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An incredible morning at Lord’s[/caption]
“I never thought after that first Test I played for England that I’d one day play a Test match for Ireland at Lord’s. It doesn’t get much better than that in my eyes. That first morning, even before the game started, the buzz around the ground, everyone walking out through the Long Room onto the field. Never mind the first two hours of the game where it just went berserk and almost felt like it was a dream, walking in at lunchtime, having bowled them out for 85. It was just a very, very strange first morning, to say the least.
“I think everybody was thinking the same thing: ‘Are we actually here? Is this happening?’ You think, ‘We’ll pick up one, we’ll pick up two and then they’re going to get a partnership going’. But the wickets just kept on going and going, and then they were six down. Everything just seemed to go our way, every review, every catch – everything went our way that morning. We obviously enjoyed our first Lord’s lunch after bowling them out knowing we wouldn’t have to go back out.
“Going into that third morning, we felt like we had a great chance of winning that game. With the lights on and overcast conditions, Chris Woakes and Stuart Broad cleaned us up pretty quickly and it just wasn’t meant to be for us in getting a win. To get ourselves in a winning position and then lose it was more gutting than potentially not playing as well, but it was obviously a great occasion and it’ll be one of those memories I’ll always treasure.”
