It's the turn of former international umpire Paddy O'Hara, who chooses the 1992 game between Ireland and Wales in Dublin.

During a stellar career in the middle, O'Hara stood in 47 internationals, including the 1994 ICC Trophy final, before Test umpires took that particular honour out of amateur hands. He was the first Irish official to stand in a NatWest Trophy game and he decided to go out at the top after being Ireland's nominated umpire at the 2001 ICC Trophy in Canada.

He worked as an Umpire Manager at tournaments for ICC Europe for many years where he passed on his great knowledge and experience to the next generation of upcoming umpires throughout the continent.

I remember my first International appointment - for three reasons. Ireland v Wales.

A 3-day drawn game at Trinity College in 1992.

1. The first one was a reality check. The umpires were expected to sort themselves out regarding accommodation. So my colleague, Leinster`s Louis Hogan generously offered to have me stay at his, for the 3 days. Afterwards he complained long and loudly to anyone who would listen, that I ate him out of house and home, and scoffed a whole bottle of his favourite 20 year old single malt whiskey - a foul calumny, of course !!

2. Secondly, Ireland batted first and opened up with a superb double century 1st wicket partnership between Michael Rea and Stephen Warke - both men getting hundreds. There cannot have been too many of those, in the Ireland record books.

3. And lastly, Ireland only lost 13 wickets in their two declared innings and 8 of them were LBW`s. In the competition between us, Louis Hogan won easily. It was either 7-1 or 6-2 in his favour, I think!

Paddy O'Hara has to adjuicate as Welsh batsman Andy Puddle just makes his ground

And in the two Welsh innings there was not a single LBW. After Ireland`s double century start we had Decker Curry striding purposefully to the wicket, and I thought the deflated Welsh attack was very likely to be blasted to all parts of College Park. I had umpired Decker three times in Irish cup matches - twice for Donemana and once for Limavady and he made 3 hundreds!

Imagine my disappointment when I had to dispatch him LBW for a second ball duck. Isn`t cricket a curious game?

A second match worthy of mention was when Ireland spurned a golden opportunity to add to their David & Goliath achievements. 1994 Ireland v New Zealand - 55 overs a side at Comber, with the late great Beattie Arlow as my colleague.

The Kiwi`s batted first (as usually happens in these fixtures) and made a below par 233 for 6, due in no small part to an excellent spell of bowling from North West`s Gordon Cooke, who bowled 4 maidens in his 9 over spell and claiming two top order scalps.

In reply, Ireland had victory almost assured thanks to another superb knock of 82 by Warkey. Aided and abetted by 30`s from Justin Benson and Alan Lewis, Ireland were on the brink - 213 for 4 and just 20 required in the small fast scoring ground, with 6 wickets in hand.

Sadly, the lower order took stage fright and 5 wickets tumbled for 14 runs leaving New Zealand winners by 6 runs.

So near and yet so far.