Niall O'Brien

In this episode we speak with Ireland wicketkeeper-batsman Niall O’Brien - and it's an episode with a difference. All the other players we’ve spoken with were hopeful of long Test careers when they made their debuts but Niall is a bit different.

A left-hander who played county cricket with Kent, Northamptonshire and Leicestershire for well over a decade, Niall first played for Ireland at under-17 level in 1999 and at that stage the idea of Test cricket for the country was not even a distant dream.

However, a succession of impressive performances in ICC limited-over events and in the ICC Intercontinental Cup, the global first-class competition for international sides below Test status, pressed Ireland’s case, and in 2018 they finally got the chance to play a match in the longest form of the game, against Pakistan at Malahide.

Niall’s professional career was very much in its final throes by then, but the prospect of playing in that match helped drive him on and he finally got his reward, becoming a member of the first playing eleven to take the field for his country in Test cricket.

Niall not only talks extensively about the match in question in this podcast, a match that featured a brilliant hundred by his brother Kevin, but he puts it into the context of his career and Ireland’s journey from nowhere to the very top table of the sport.