William Porterfield

For serene and solid William Porterfield, captaincy has been a natural progression. He has captained Ireland at all levels from Under-13 upwards. He was a part of the squad in the Under-19 World Cup in 2004 and captained Ireland A before taking over the captaincy of the senior side from Trent Johnston in 2008. So, on Ireland's red-letter day, on the eve of their first-ever Test match after being recognized by ICC as a full member team, Porterfield was ready.

A high backlift and a strong back-foot play are the traits that make William Porterfield a solid opener for Ireland. His penchant to stay on the back foot and favor the horizontal bat shots has ensured that pace and bounce have never been an issue for him to deal. A natural puller and cutter of the cricket ball, the southpaw has been there for Ireland through every thick and thin.

His one-day career could not have started on a more perfect note. Porterfield made his debut against Scotland in 2006. After a couple of games, he shot to limelight by hitting two wonderful back-to-back tons, first against Bermuda and then, Kenya. In the 2007 World Cup, he was awarded Man of the Match for his fantastic 85 against Bangladesh in a Super Eight game. Barring that his tournament was nothing to write home about.

His performances in the 50 overs World Cup in 2011 was inspiring as they managed to defeat England in one of the major upsets of the tournament. In their last league game, he scored a vital fifty to help Ireland register a win against Netherlands. However, skipper Porterfield almost helped Ireland qualify to the knockouts in the 2015 WC as Windies pipped them via a superior net run rate after finishing level on points with 3 wins from 6 games. It was ironical though as Ireland had defeated Windies in their first league game. Porterfield gave a great account of himself and his team but with the bat could only to come to the party in the last two league games. He scored a fifty and a hundred against India and Pakistan, both in a losing cause, respectively,

A cricketer who has been on a journey, he has plied his trade for various teams. From 2004 to 2006, Porterfield was a part of the Second XI for Durham, MCC Young Cricketers, Northamptonshire, Derbyshire and Kent. In 2007, he became the first Irishman to score 1000 runs in a calendar year and was offered a two-year Gloucestershire contract.

In order to secure a permanent place in the Gloucestershire squad, he chose to play county cricket rather than leading Ireland in the ODIs against Scotland and New Zealand. In 2009, he won the Associate and Affiliate Player of the year. The following year, he registered his career-best score of 175 in the County Championship Division Two game against Worcestershire. At the end of the season, he was one of the several players who left the club and signed a three-year contract with Warwickshire.

Ireland made a roaring start to their campaign in the first round of the 2014 World T20 Cup winning their opening two games comfortably under Porterfield's captaincy but narrowly missed out on qualifying for the next stage, courtesy Netherlands pulling off a miraculous heist in their final game. Porterfield's next biggest mission was the 50-over World Cup down under and Ireland entered the tournament in red-hot form on the back of a triangular series triumph in Dubai in the lead-up to the World Cup. They topped the table and defeating Afghanistan and Scotland. The Irish boys stunned three-time World Champions West Indies in the first game and followed it up with a nervy victory over UAE. However, they hit a roadblock losing three out of their remaining four games and finished at fifth spot in Pool B.

William Porterfield proved his worth and led his team from the front emerging as the highest run-getter ( 275 runs in 6 innings); he scored a brilliant ton in the final league match against Pakistan and ended the tournament on a high. The next couple of years saw the decline in his batting form and that took a toll on his captaincy a bit. As a result, he had to give up his T20I mantle to Gary Wilson. In November 2019, an era in Ireland came to an end when Porterfield announced that he was stepping aside from the roles of ODI and Test captaincy too after leading them in over 253 International games. Amidst Ireland's top batsmen leaving the country for better prospects, Porterfield has been a solid rock under whom the team has flourished quite well

by Kumar Abhisekh Das and Sriram AS