Barry McCarthy was understandably delighted after Durham’s Specsavers County Championship win over Glamorgan at Emirates Riverside.
As well as playing his part in securing the maiden first-class win of 2017, McCarthy also found out about Ireland’s elevation to Full Member status with the ICC.
That means the Irish will be eligible to play Test matches in the near future, which could means caps for himself & Durham team mate Stuart Poynter.
The 24-year-old had earlier taken four wickets to dismiss Glamorgan & set up a chase of 157, which Stephen Cook & Cameron Steel made light work of.
And after some tasty battles with nightwatchman Lukas Carey, he was pleased to get his own back – after a few words of encouragement.
“I decided to have a few words to him which didn’t go so well! He took out the long handle, took a liking to my line and length and despatched me a few times,” he said. “When I saw the back of him, I got three in three overs.”
“We had to attack the off stump line and we did that enough to create 20+ chances which set it up nicely for the batsmen to chase.
“We certainly took a different mentality to them. It was great to see Steely get some runs & Cooky get some runs before he goes.
“It was good to get the chase because there was a lot in the pitch but they made it easier than it was.
“A very good four days in all.”
McCarthy followed up his career-best first-class figures from last week’s game against Kent with seven more wickets at Emirates Riverside.
That makes it 19 wickets in three Specsavers County Championship outings this year and another step up is coming in the near future, when he will get chance to pit himself against the best in the world over five days.
And he was thankful to the work from all those before him as Ireland, along with Afghanistan, enter an exciting new era.
“I’ve been part of the team for the last 12 months or so now but there’s a lot of people in the last 10 or 15 years, even longer, who are going to go as unsung heroes,” he said.
“It’s a really good job from everyone around to get us to that situation where we can hopefully host a Test match in the next 12 months.
“It really is brilliant and great to be a part of it at this time in my career.”