Ed Joyce has given a birthday gift to her mother by scoring a century and also winning the Man of the Match award in the World Cup match against Zimbabwe on Saturday.

“It was my mother Maureen's 70th birthday and my brother's century is the biggest birthday gift to-day”, Joyce's sister, Isobel Joyce, an Irish woman team captain, said exclusively over telephone from Dublin.

“We are all very proud of Ed's innings. The rest of the family was at my parents house to celebrate mum Maureen's birthday, so we all cheered the boys on to victory to-day”.

Interestingly, Joyce's mother officiated as an official scorer for two women's ODI matches against New Zealand in 2002.

“She still scores, but now just for our club teams. She gets too nervous watching any of us play at international level. So she doesn't even watch the games any more, let alone score”.

Joyce is a sports loving family. The twin sisters (Isobel and Cecilia) have played for Ireland. The two brothers (Gus and Dominic) have been playing cricket and elder brother John Joyce is a chess player.

“Being in a big family, we used to have enough people along with our neighbours to have backyard matches and all the younger ones were coached by elder ones”, she added.

“It was lovely to be all together while my son was being interviewed on television for the MoM award. He is one of the best cricketers Ireland has ever produced. It is a brilliant that he has played such a fabulous innings in a huge match for Ireland”.

“We were all supportive of Ed Joyce choosing to play for England and trying to play Test cricket. However, we are obviously delighted when he then decided to come back and play for Ireland when that didn't happen”, she signed off.