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Tue 04 Apr 2007Ireland up against their model oppositionIreland v South Africa: Barry Richards, Mike Procter, Graeme Pollock, Eddie Barlow, Peter Kirsten, Peter Pollock, Ken McEwan, Garth Le Roux. These are just a few of South Africa's lost generation, a cohort of hugely talented players who were frozen out of international cricket in the 1970s and 1980s as a result of the apartheid ban.To this list can be added those who went a stage further, leaving the country to earn their living elsewhere. Men like Alan Lamb, and Robin and Chris Smith fulfilled residency qualifications to play for England, and, in Kepler Wessels' case, Australia.