IT WAS hard to escape the Joyces yesterday; father Jim and four siblings came to watch, Dominick top-scored for Ireland, then older brother Ed took centre stage, making 95 to sweep his club to an embarrassingly easy victory over his country of birth.

While the Joyce clan is large — one Middlesex team-mate ventured that “there must be a thousand of them” — there is only one Ed. Playing for the first time against the side he last represented in the ICC Trophy final in July, he took an early catch to remove Jeremy Bray and ran out Trent Johnston, the Ireland captain.

In the stuff of backyard boyhood dreams in Co Wicklow, Joyce then got to bowl to his brother at Lord’s. The younger Joyce helped to repair the Ireland innings with a careful 45 from 77 balls, assisted first by Shahid Afridi’s powerful 27, then a well-constructed 43 from Peter Gillespie. Afridi’s four fours and one six could quite easily have been the other way around as three of his blows landed only feet inside the ropes.

A total of 184 was woeful, though, and Ireland’s only hope was that Middlesex would lose wickets trying to improve their overall run-rate.

No doubt wary of the ribbing he would get from whichever former team-mate was to claim his wicket, Joyce began slowly but grew in confidence. He reached 48 from 55 balls, then proceeded to strike ten fours from his next 18 balls before slicing to backward point, looking for a second six that would have brought both his century and victory.

Ed Smith, who had been overtaken after reaching his own fifty from 39 balls, was unbeaten on 81 as Middlesex won with 25.4 overs to spare.