One of the last players to realise he was winning his 100th cap last Friday in Ireland’s one-day international against New Zealand was the man himself.

Since making his debut in 2013, it has been a stop-start career for Craig Young, with his first 50 appearances taking six years to chalk up. But for the last three years the North Down opening bowler has been virtually an ever-present, and this year has been one of the first names on the Ireland team sheet, the leader of the pace attack.

And his consistency has been rewarded with 32 wickets, the latest in Wednesday’s T20 international against the Black Caps his 150th for Ireland.

At 32-years-old, he is now the oldest member of the current side, but one moment underlined just how much playing on the big stage means to him.

“Hopefully the landmarks keep coming. They’re nice, but it’s not something I keep a massive eye on,” he said. “I wasn’t actually aware it was my 100th cap in Dublin. I knew I was there or thereabouts and when I was presented with it, the emotions took over and there were tears there, I admit.

“I am very proud to have got this far and hope there’s more left in the bank as well.

“I had a bit of a hiatus in the middle when I had to take a break (he was selected for only one international between May 2017 and July 2019) but it is what it is. You can never take for granted playing for Ireland, it’s high-level sport, form can come and go and you just have to enjoy the moments when you are playing well and not get too down when things are going bad.”

His form has never been better with 32 of those wickets coming in 2022 from just 16 matches, and all but six of them in T20 internationals. Indeed, his strike rate this year is incredible — one wicket every 16 balls.

The one over that got away was the last in the first one-day international against New Zealand last week when Young failed to defend 20 and the Black Caps, the World No.1 team in that format, won by one wicket.

“I’m feeling in good form but I’m not going to lie, the first ODI was gut-wrenching and I never felt that before, I didn’t know what to do with myself afterwards. But I was really grateful for all the support I got from the people around me after that — my fiancée Natasha and all the lads. Boyd (Rankin, his coach at North West Warriors) was first in with a message of support. It was a really difficult thing to process and they helped massively.

“But it’s important you get over those things — don’t forget them but take all you can from it, as much as you don’t want to, and move forward.

“As Purdy (former Ireland captain William Porterfield) always says, cricket does repeat itself a lot, so if I ever come up in that situation again I’m well prepared for it and just have to get stuck in.”

Having lost Wednesday’s second international badly, by 88 runs, Ireland have just one more chance to record a win over the Black Caps this summer, in the final game of the series at Stormont, but Young insists they have already forgotten about that result.

“We’re always good at bouncing back,” he said. “We never get too down, it didn’t go our way yesterday but the way we play our cricket now you are going to have days like that, and there’s going to be days when you play against India and you have those sort of days (when Ireland scored 221). As long as there are not too many days (like Wednesday) we can live with it and come back again on Friday.

“It’s T20 cricket, you can’t let confidence be dented. It’s such a hard game and you are playing against such a good team, there is no backward step from New Zealand, batters or bowlers, and you just have to stand toe-to-toe with them and see how you go.”

Ireland named an unchanged team for the first two games, with Andy McBrine left out for the “balance of the side”, according to skipper Andrew Balbirnie, but he knows that Ireland cannot afford to lose their top four batsmen for 41 runs inside the first six overs — the exact scenario in both games — and be able to compete with such formidable opposition.