JOYCE HAS POINT TO PROVE

When Ed Joyce takes guard for Ireland against England on March 2 he will have the chance to make his mark in a fixture that has thus far caused him little but disappointment.

When Ed Joyce takes guard for Ireland against England on March 2 he will have the chance to make his mark in a fixture that has thus far caused him little but disappointment. It will be Joyce's third appearance in a one-day international between the two sides but, unusually, his first for the country of his birth. Having starred for Ireland early in his career he shifted his allegiance to England on residency grounds in a bid to make his name at the highest level. Those plans never quite came to fruition for the talented left-hander, who managed 17 ODIs and two Twenty20s for his adopted country before being despatched back into the county circuit. He did manage one notable high, compiling a wonderful 107 against Australia in 2007, but that aside he failed to impress enough to become a regular. It was, though, the two outings against his countrymen that perhaps defined his now aborted England career. A quirk of fate meant his debut came in Stormont against his former team-mates and, unsurprisingly, saw him placed front and centre in the pre-match hype. Selected as an opener, and with captain Andrew Strauss opting to bat first, there was no hiding place for Joyce. When he was dismissed by Dave Langford-Smith for a 21-ball 10, his much trailed 'defection' had already started to go wrong. Better times followed, his 47 from number four was by some way the top score when England were rolled over for 120 by New Zealand and he led the way again with 66 against the same opponents soon after. So it was that Joyce earned his place in the 2007 World Cup squad and was then selected to open the innings alongside Michael Vaughan. Knocks of 66 and 75 against the lesser lights of Canada and Kenya made up for a duck in the first group match and saw him approach the Super Eights phase in decent touch. Ireland had overachieved to also progress from the group stage, despite not being able to call on the man who was still deemed their most talented cricketer. Unsurprisingly, Joyce was the target when the sides met soon after in Guyana and once again the underdogs got their man cheap, Boyd Rankin bowling Joyce for just one run in the second over of the day. He was to play just once more for England, scoring 10, before being jettisoned. Having accepted his dream of playing Test cricket was over, Joyce decided last year to return to the Ireland ranks and was cleared by the ICC to feature in the World Cup despite being a couple of months short of his requalification. As a genuinely talented player with a proven first-class pedigree, Joyce will doubtless be welcomed back into the side by his compatriots - notwithstanding whoever has to make way for his recall - but a big innings against his one-time employers would go a long way to making his second spell as an Ireland player a celebratory one. Indeed, he may look at fellow Dubliner Eoin Morgan - a man who has grasped his chance in England's colours with the kind of authority that evaded Joyce - and decide it is his turn to fall cheaply against his fellow Irishmen. Either way it is a date Joyce, and any fan of Ireland cricket, will have marked down in his diary as a special day.