GUERILLAS ON TOUR: Squashed cake, the threat of rain and an accidental broadcast can't keep spirits down

The Cricketer has linked up with GUERILLA CRICKET for the duration of the historic Test match between Ireland and Pakistan. In the first of a set of daily blogs, the Guerillas let us in on the experience of shifting their equipment to Malahide

Eighties post-punk band Magazine once recorded a song that makes you think of a British obsession: About the Weather, it was called.

It was a tune that could have been penned to order for cricket lovers, and as a sextet of Guerillas set out for Dublin by land and sea, equipment and personnel jammed among baggage in two cars in what turned into a mammoth 15-hour haul, anxious eyes were raised to the skies.

Behind them in the English capital they left the toe-end of a Bank Holiday heatwave; ahead, in the Irish one, they were promised a deluge of biblical proportions: the first three days of Ireland’s inaugural Test match, for which the irreverent alternative commentary had won internet audio broadcasting rights, were threatened by rain.

Derided in some quarters as Posh Boys from the Home Counties – slightly unfair as at least one member of the group was both female and from Pakistan by way of New York – by Oxford, there was more disappointment as the Guerillas’ ceremonial cake, baked in honour of cricket radio commentaries worldwide, proved well short of TMS standards and lay sad, squashed and unsampled under two bags in the boot.

^{The Guerilla Cricket ceremonial cake... squashed in the boot}

Later, as the clouds gathered and England gave way to Wales, news came through that the 5.15pm ferry had been cancelled; the 8pm subsequently became the 9pm and the time together in close proximity began to wear.

The conversation, as the ship slipped out of port, hit its first low. “Did you know,” said one Guerilla, “that Will Beer is the boyfriend of my partner’s sister’s neighbour?”

The others returned to silent Irish revision among a bank of laptops and discarded meals, before, as the vessel glided past the Isle of Man, one piped up with a question for the others.

“How many wickets did Boyd Rankin take in his one Test and who was his victim?” he asked innocently. The tension dissolved immediately and on the dot of midnight, the Guerillas landed fatigued but good-humoured on Irish soil.

T-minus one day

Remarkably clear skies greeted the team as they rose after barely four hours of shut-eye from their many forms of sleep furniture – single beds, double beds, air beds and a couch – in the spacious Airbnb accommodation that was rumoured to have cost more than the broadcasting rights.

After seven people fought over the one shower, a series of car journeys took the first tranche of Guerillas to the Malahide Ground, about 30 minutes north, while others checked the small print in their contract for limitations on expletives.

Nothing was found, although to the horror of cricket’s most subversive group they discovered that there was nothing in the papers to prevent another underground commentary group moving into the stands nearby and pooping their party: internet rights as such, had not been included in the wording.

The Guerilla squad was strengthened by the addition of a producer who had flown in that morning; a vast array of technical and editorial tasks lay ahead. The technical director had the fear, a photograph of their accommodation at the ground suggesting it was no bigger than two-metre-square shed.

^{Guerillas on the ferry to Ireland}

In truth it was no Lord’s media centre, but on closer inspection the people most crucial to the programme at any one time – the ball-by-baller, the one manning Twitter and the other ramping up the jingles – could be squeezed in.

The problem was finding room for the occasional guest – George Dockerell was pencilled in for duty on Day 1 – and the camera that broadcasts the show on Facebook Live.

Interviews were grabbed with Shadab Khan and Ed Joyce as nets got under way after a press conference, but another one on the other side of the ground did not go to plan.

One Guerilla had been charged with a phone interview with Steven Crook, their favourite Australian and a wonderful servant for Northamptonshire and Middlesex, whose county had taken on the Pakistan team in the second and final warm-up game some days earlier.

The plan was to get the lowdown on the tourists from a man who had just experienced them at close quarters. Unfortunately, the line crashed halfway through, and with his technical director executing a poorly-timed visit to the little boys’ room, the interviewer was heard to utter the first obscenity of the day.

It should at least have gone unheard by anyone but him but the technical director, having disappeared under a spaghetti of cables as he dealt with mixing desks, computers and microphones, had accidentally got his wires crossed: the whole piece, expletives and all, had gone live on the Guerilla website.

The Cricketer has teamed up with Guerilla Cricket - the official radio broadcaster of the game - to get insight from Malahide.

Listen to ball-by-ball commentary by clicking here

Follow Guerilla Cricket on Twitter - @guerillacricket