Lawrence Moore, 26 February 2020

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Much as though I wish I could say otherwise, I wasn't there in person to see the truly great Irish performances that are bound to feature heavily in this tribute to 1000 games.

My personal favourite was a much more modest, but nonetheless hugely satisfying win over Zimbabwe in a T20 International at Bready on 12 July last year.

For the past number of seasons the NWCU had lobbied hard to bring A-list opposition to the region. The word on the street was that if we could prove to CI that we had what it took, next year would be our year.

To be fair, we'd heard it all before, but having been dogged by inclement weather so often in the past, the hope was that the sun wouldn't let us down on the Twelfth and we could finally strut our stuff.

As a Union we went all out in terms of build-up and marketing. We got a crowd in, got the cameras there and Mark Adair and Craig Young bowled superbly to keep Ireland on top as the Zimbabweans batted first.

They got maybe 140 from memory?

The majority of those in had come to see Stirlo and just like the yellow sky ball, he didn't disappoint. It rained only sixes and fours in the second innings as Paul scored 80-odd off what seemed like 12 balls- him and Balbo getting the job done in a canter.

It was a fantastic afternoon's cricket that undoubtedly paved the way for bigger things to come in 2020, although despite all that, it wasn't an entirely perfect day.

A few of the players made their way to the Brandywell later that evening and were treated to the worst 0-0 draw in the history of football between the Candystripes and UCD.