Celebration time for Ireland cricket, gets place in ICC ODI table

St George's, Grenada, Apr 17 (UNI) It is celebration time for Ireland as they have now found a place in the ICC ODI Championship table by virtue of beating two full members.

Ireland will now officially appear in the rankings table of the ICC after their last game in the Super Eight stage of the World Cup against Sri Lanka here tomorrow.

Having been part of the ICC Assoicate ODI rankings, Ireland have graduated the ICC ODI championship after defeating two full members -- Pakistan and Bangladesh -- in accordance with the qualification regulations.

Once an Associate member has played at least 10 ODIs in total, it has the opportunity to be promoted to the main table. To gain this promotion, the team must either achieve two wins over full members, as Ireland have done in this World Cup, or achieve one win against a full member and also have won more than 60 per cent of matches against other Associate member teams.

Currently, the table is made up of the 10 full members plus Kenya.

Following a previous ICC Board decision, Ireland will now have full ODI status until 2009, a status also enjoyed by the top six Associate members, the others being Kenya, Scotland, the Netherlands, Canada and Bermuda.

UNI