The mother of a cricket-mad family faces the ultimate dilemma today: whether to cheer for her son or her country.

Maureen Joyce can’t do both. At her home in Bray, Co. Wicklow, she will be watching her country’s team take on England in the Cricket World Cup from her usual spot — hiding behind the sofa while biting her nails. One of the England players trying to see off the Irishmen is her son, Ed, 28.

“I have very mixed feelings about it all, but mostly I want Ed to succeed,” she told The Times yesterday.

“It caused a pang when Ed declared for England, I must admit. But Ireland’s success so far in the World Cup has been fantastic and it’s doing great things for the sport here . . . my nerves can’t take it.”

Cricket has long been proud of its dynasties but nowhere in the pages of Wisden will you find a more extraordinary family than the Joyces.

Ed, the source of Maureen’s dilemma, is the Middlesex professional who was wheeled out for interviews as the respectable face of the England squad after the Flintoff pedalo fiasco.

But there is also Dominick, 25, who has played for Ireland — facing England and his older brother last year in Belfast during Ireland’s first one-day international against a Test-playing country — and Gus, 32, whose international career for Ireland ended after a shoulder injury.Of four Joyce girls, the twins Isobel and Cecilia, 23, have played for Ireland’s women’s team, bringing to five the number of internationals in the family.

Two other brothers, Damien, 34, and Gus, 32, have played at provincial level while Maureen is scorer at Merrion, the family’s local cricket club, and her husband, Jimmy, is secretary of Leinster Cricket Union.

It was Jimmy who started the family passion for cricket when he listened to the commentary of a 1957 Test between England and the West Indies side of Sonny Ramadhin and Alf Valentine. It was a very exotic thing for a boy in a Christian Brothers school but he was hooked and quickly converted Maureen to the cause.

When the children came along the whole family became involved. Jimmy helped to form a club in Bray. Eventually the Joyces were numerous enough to field their own XI against it.

Now, for the first time since Ireland gained independence in the 1920s, cricket is front page news. Brian O’Rourke, the Irish Cricket Union’s youth development officer, said: “Best of all for us, the youngsters with an interest in the game now have their own Irish cricket heroes rather than having to follow the English ones.”

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