ICC honour for O'Brien

Niall O'Brien has been highly effective for Ireland in the Intercontinental Cup this year

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Northamptonshire and Ireland wicketkeeper Niall O’Brien has been named in the ICC Intercontinental Cup team of the tournament.

His brother Kevin O’Brien has also been included, with Andre Botha handed the captaincy of the make-up side, and Peter O’Connell named as 12th man.

Defending champions Ireland have reached the final of the competition, which is due to be played between October 30 and November 1, against Namibia, who also have three players in the dream team.

Gerrie Snyman, Kola Burger and Louis Klazinga all feature in the line-up, with only Scotland and Holland not having one of their players named.

Of the eight competing teams, Canada, Bermuda and the United Arab Emirates all have one representative, with Kenya having two in Hiren Varayia and Thomas Odoyo.

The team was selected by a specially assembled panel of experts after the coaches and captains of each of the eight competing teams were asked to make their nominations from teams other than their own

They nominated players in the following categories: opening batsmen (two); top/middle-order batsmen (three); wicketkeeper (one); quick bowlers (three); spin bowlers (two) and one additional player from any category, who the coaches and captains felt was deserving of his place.

To be nominated, players must have appeared in at least four out of his team’s seven ICC Intercontinental Cup 2007-2008 round-robin matches.

The coaches and captains were also asked to nominate a captain from the players they picked.

“Once all the votes from the coaches and captains had been tallied, the panel made the final selections but relied heavily on those nominations,” ICC high performance manager Richard Done said.

Andre Botha was named as captain of the ICC team of the tournament, which included four Irishmen

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“There have been some wonderful performances in the 2007-08 event and a remarkable number of close games. It was also testament to the competitive nature of the tournament that we did not know who both finalists would be until the last day of the last match, between Kenya and Ireland at Nairobi Gymkhana earlier this month.

“During the tournament, the members of the selection panel between them saw all the teams in action and all are hugely knowledgeable about associate cricket, particularly the top sides.

“It made for some interesting discussions in debating the make-up of the team and I think the time and thought that went into that process has yielded 12 guys who have all performed outstandingly well for their teams in the 2007-08 edition of the tournament.

“The idea of the ICC Intercontinental Cup is to give players from associate teams the opportunity to play more the longer form of the game and the four-day format has been very successful. I have noticed a lot of improvement in performances since this tournament was introduced in 2004.

“Batsmen are demonstrating better concentration and technique, bowlers are showing more patience and the fielding is also improving. It’s really encouraging as we continue to close the gap between the Test sides and the top Associates.

“Although this team won’t actually play any matches, I am pretty confident it could hold its own at a high level. This is a fine group of players named here.”

Team of the tournament 2007-08:

Niall O’Brien (Ireland, wicketkeeper)
Saqib Ali (UAE)
Andre Botha (Ireland, captain)
Gerrie Snyman (Namibia)
Kevin O’Brien (Ireland)
Thomas Odoyo (Kenya)
Sunil Dhaniram (Canada)
Kola Burger (Namibia)
Louis Klazinga (Namibia)
Hiren Varayia (Kenya)
Dwayne Leverock (Bermuda)
12th man: Peter Connell (Ireland)