Is Irish Cricket left in the freezer?

“We’re going into those meetings with our chins and our heads a bit higher” said Cricket Ireland CEO Sarah Keane optimistically at the most recent roundtable media event, referring of course to the upcoming ICC meetings in Edinburgh. They’re comments that may come back to bite.

 

Keane said this after those incredible three days for Irish cricket with a 2-0 T20I series victory over men’s world champions India and of course Ireland Women’s first win at a T20 World Cup when they beat West Indies. She was possibly right to say it too, Irish cricket stocks hadn’t been higher in years.

The former Swim Ireland CEO has stated she’s enjoyed finding out more about cricket as she had gone on in the role. However the most recent ICC meetings with Sarah Keane and Cricket Ireland chair Brian McNeise travelling over to Edinburgh will have been a sobering lesson on cricket’s workings at a global level.

From his time on the ICC board, interim Cricket Ireland CEO Ross McCollum (just before Keane) was confident in Ireland’s ability to secure the most recent Men’s T20I series with India which will have funded plenty of other matches this summer. But the hope had been for more than the two T20Is.

Where are we now?

Irish Cricket certainly exists. It’s there, and it’s mostly funded by the ICC. That money goes to Cricket Ireland and eventually to the Provincial Unions. As part of that system and agreement, Ireland’s Men and Women’s teams take part in ICC invents, biennial T20 World Cups. There’s a pathway system that is meant to support all of this and we’ve Men’s and Women’s Under-19s World Cups too.

It’s never been said out loud but the International Cricket Council in its current iteration sees itself as event facilitators with broadcasting and commercial deals falling out of that. That’s not far removed from FIFA or the IOC, however sometimes all of those interests can briefly align. An expanded men’s football World Cup allowed us to have brilliant moments like Cape Verde and Curaçao, and that can only expand the game in those regions.

Recently the global cricket body proudly announced the admission of Mauritius as the 111th Member of the International Cricket Council which marked “another important step in the continued global growth of the game” according to the media release. “The addition of Mauritius reflects the ICC’s commitment to expanding cricket’s reach, strengthening its presence in emerging markets, and creating greater opportunities for participation and development across the world”.

Now square that with the organisation’s recent decision to cut the 2027 Men’s ODI World Cup from the promised 14 teams effectively to 12 with an extra qualifying tournament to make the big dance on top of all the previous qualifying you had to do. Mauritius of course aren’t going to the 2027 ODI World Cup – they’d need to have jumped through three years of hoops and whatever extra might be thrown at them in the extra pre-tournament qualifying. Not to mention even being inside the T20I rankings threshold to make the one day cricket pyramid.

Remember also that Netherlands qualified for the ten-team 2023 World Cup ahead of Ireland, Zimbabwe and West Indies, and pulled off two major upsets in beating South Africa and Bangladesh. Where has that got them? They have not played an ODI against ICC Full Member opposition since. How must it feel to hear about those changes announced in Edinburgh?

“Qualifying for an ODI World Cup is a huge achievement for any country, so when the reality of that opportunity changes after years of planning, it’s incredibly disappointing” said Dutch captain Scott Edwards in a significant statement from the World Cricketers Association.

The cricket world can often feel like a mansion on a hill. You might get access to it, you might not. Increasingly however, those on the hill grow more distant from the world as developments happen elsewhere commercially and in other sports too. Cricket always seems to have had a sense of we don’t need anyone else. What happens when you do? This picture doesn’t exactly endear itself to new fans, or even media outlets when trying pitch to editors for cricket work. Why invest the time, column inches, or the space on your website.

Read More – The EC Open Floor: Powerful perspectives after ICC’s boilover World Cup decision

The look within

At times like these it’s important to remember that Irish cricket is so much more than ICC money and international teams, much in the same way that the League of Ireland recently considered separating itself from the Football Association of Ireland. Irish cricket is an intricate network of volunteers, coaches, ground staff, players, photographers and journalists.

In an age when everyone seems carried away with the obsession of protecting borders, you get a whiff of protectionism in cricket too and it’s not just the sport looking to protect itself from dangers lurking out there. We’re currently in a franchise league boom, and countries want to protect their windows in the calendar. Some even want to protect their players from participating in other leagues. It’s about holding onto your assets, they might offer.

A European nations T20 competition though is just a good idea for everyone involved in the region and could be a way of owning something that’s not another league, not a bilateral series and not an ICC event. However we have now seen the ECB block the MCC from hosting. You could understand the ECB saying the growth of European cricket simply isn’t their problem, but blocking the hosting of an event could be perceived as something more.

The cricket universe is small. It may call itself the second-biggest sport in the world based on South Asian markets yet can it really make that claim based on growth, its coverage and its standing in each of the continents. Former Cricket Ireland CEO Warren Deutrom made the claim in a social video by media outlet JOE.ie at last year’s ODIs against West Indies at Clontarf, and it felt hollow when set against cricket’s historical expansion issues. Maybe that’s not even Deutrom’s fault, it’s just the way the sport has been wired.

Having worked at Cricket Ireland, some of this can be despairing. There are things within your control, but much that isn’t. In Ireland you’re competing against football, GAA club and county competitions, rugby, horse racing, and more for media coverage and participation. Cricket Ireland activities then have to work around the ICC calendar with T20 domestic cricket leading to international tournaments for example and your international games to match the current T20 or ODI cycle. From a media perspective, you need to somehow make that into a narrative for fans, readers, even editors when you pitch work as a journalist.

Is there a world where enough becomes enough for smaller cricket nations around the world?

We have had revolutions in cricket before. Some might argue that those such as World Series Cricket or the IPL have only come around due to clear financial drivers even if there were benefits for players as well. But there have been many others too in cricket history not exactly driven that way.

Do decisions like a reduced World Cup maybe make you look inside instead of outward? For Irish cricket the focus perhaps should be its vibrant club competitions. Plenty of fans made the early morning journey to Ireland’s recent games at the Women’s T20 World Cup in England. That’s valuable time and money invested by consumers. With reduced tournament spots, do fans of emerging cricketing nations eventually say “We’re done here”?

The threat has always been posed that Indian cricket as a gigantic market doesn’t need anyone else but has that been proven? What is definitely proven is that every other nation needs somebody else. Ireland definitely does, and the popularity of its Men’s team in the 2007-2015 period at home and abroad was certainly down to ODI World Cup participation and obtaining big results there.

It’s worth remembering that the 2007 World Cup was indeed a 14-team tournament like that 2027 tournament was meant to be. But 2007 is also where the original sin happened: Ireland beating Pakistan, and Bangladesh beating India which famously denied broadcasters an India/Pakistan clash in the next round. In scheduling terms, nothing has been the same since for smaller teams. Fans start to see all of this, it’s in plain sight.

Bob Woolmer, Pakistan coach at the time, tragically died in his hotel room the night of that famous win. Besides being a coach ahead of his time, Woolmer was also the architect of the ICC Intercontinental Cup which provided crucial first-class cricket for Ireland, Afghanistan, Scotland and the Netherlands among many others. What would the coach make of the World Cup structuring decisions made since 2007?

For now though with the recent announcement, among others, you get the feeling that Irish cricket has been left on ice preserved. It won’t die, it’s still there but does it really have the right conditions to grow.

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