Test Cricket for Ireland?

[sussexpob]

The reaction after Ireland's victory against the West Indies at the weekend was predictable, with fresh calls for Ireland to be given test status now seemingly spiralling out of control. And while Ireland are proving with recent world cups that they are capable of beating top sides in one off games, are these calls a little premature? Is Ireland even ready for test cricket? ODI cricket can be a lottery, and the very nature of a one innings format means that it doesn't take much for a few wickets to fall in any game and prove to be critical in a result. Test cricket by its nature is more forgiving to such surprises, there are second chances and time to put things right.

The main concern for an Irish Test team has to be lack of resources and domestic structure. While its easy for critics of England to point towards the ECB's selection of Irish players snatching talent away from Ireland, such an opinion ignores the reality of the situation; that there is no first class game in Ireland, and that without English county structure developing and picking Irish talent on the basis that they are seen as de facto English players, virtually all of Ireland's team (and certainly the core quality of their team) would have no avenue towards regular competitive, high class cricket.

Its easy to setup a system or a league and give it first class status, but without the money to invest in facilities, coaches and pay the players a decent wage, would anyone chose to play in it? On the flipside, if Ireland had a team that were regularly playing in the Northern Hemisphere summer, would counties keep on investing talent in Ireland's players knowing that they would now be open to foreign test side?

Its not just a question of quality, but more of finance. The central contract system and international selection by the ECB compensates counties for losing their talent, so even if they do end up playing for a decade more for England, the county benefits. With a foreign board central contracted player, would this be the case? Would counties develop a talent just to see him walk away for free? How would such a contract be structured?

We can already see that even certain English players loyalty between the England team and money can test the waters of a relationship between board and player, most noticeable with IPL cricket. Yet England have the capacity and money to ride out the crest of these waves to an extent, as they pay good money for a central contract. In a world where international cricket financing is now a question of bi-lateral agreements, the wealth divide in cricket is widening considerably, and one has to ask how many Irish players would remain loyal to their board should a call between them and England come? Ireland's best player by far, Ed Joyce, where to Ireland be a test nation, would remain unselected having already chosen to pursue an England career and its benefits, as have others.

In fact, with bilateral agreements and the struggles of even one of the most storied teams in Test crickets history, the West Indies, finding matches enough to pay their players, would the interest in an Irish series generate enough income for a fledging system needing investment to make the necessary base level improvements? If the Windies are bankrupt without one series vs India and its money, how can an non-established nation like Ireland expect to compete? The answer is obviously the natural political relationship in place with England, but would they sacrifice Ashes series or those against India to play Ireland, when already we are seeing a new system that floods us with these types of series, and all but renders other non profit making tours as void? The less money Ireland generate, the more the issues already discussed would compound themselves....

The only way that Ireland can realistically work is to have first class game with their own fostered talent, but in order to enact that would take years and bags of investment in all levels of logistics and structure, and also require much more quality than is at their disposal. Would guys like Joyce flourish at international level if he was only playing against U19 attacks or second XI's? As the points above discuss, if the answer is to rely on English feeder systems and county cricket, I doubt for financial reasons and for playing in prestige conditions, Ireland are likely to maintain board loyalty from their players.... we will still see the best Irish talent going to England if using English feeding systems where players, once at an international pick able class, are qualified through domestic residence. A player who is successful in Ireland cant transfer to England if they were a test nation, so any serious talent would have to be very loyal and give up a much higher salary, and its only loyalty or patriotism they are paid in return.

The last point that can be made is, how much are these results in World Cup's isolated? While its easy to say Ireland are picking up results here and there, I wonder how much this is down to an Ireland team that is fresh, who have little else to prepare for, and who are not like other teams playing huge levels of high level cricket virtually constantly, with huge media interest in their highs and lows, and the pressure that brings?

We have seen in other sports recently, like the FA Cup, that on any given day a team like Bradford can beat Chelsea away, and like Ireland, have made a thing of it in recent years..... but the reality is, when asked to replicate this week in week out, they are a team that struggle 2 divisions below, who do not have the consistency or quality to compete if required all the time.

Ireland's result against the Windies for instance is hardly that surprising. The Windies attack in South Africa gave up one of the highest scores of all time and generally got pasted around for fun, their team has been on strike, their board and players barely communicate, they are nearly bankrupt and they looked utterly clueless against England in the warm ups. They are a team that are as low as a test side can go, both mentally and probably physically, no confidence and little team spirit after contractual disputes after contractual disputes..... I doubt many focused teams with a bit about them would find this team hard to break at the moment. In a way, the same can be said of Pakistan in 2007, after Bob Woolmer's death it all came out about the divisions in the team on religious grounds and the problems they had bubbling under the surface.

Ireland are immune to this at the moment. They haven't been on tour with players who have barely seen their family in a decade, haven't had tough series in alien conditions, against top teams over five days. Nothing can prepare you for that, and can anyone honestly say that the domestic setup is there? That the current team could give any of the test nations a decent go? One of the top bowlers couldn't get a game for Sussex second XI !!!

A bit of reality is needed, as even in Bangladesh where cricket has a huge and passionate following, and with 160 million population and an established FC system, the amount of players of test match quality they have produced has been very poor, and they have hardly got better in 15 plus years..... and in 2005 when they beat Australia in the ODI series in England, we heard the same initial reports of the "false dawn" that was upon us.

Ireland just aren't ready for test cricket, the first step up the ladder is to prove they can actually set up a competitive league structure in their own country.

[Aidan11]

No way will Ireland be given test status.

I remember when Kenya reached the WC semi finals. There were calls then that maybe they were ready to step up. We all know what happened next. Different circumstances to Ireland of course but one good tournament or one good win in a different format does not make anyone a test nation.

[rich1uk]

wont happen but I kinda agree with the comment M-S made in the other thread , the ECB already covers England and wales, and has agreements with the irish cricket board as well, so why not just make England a GB team , tbh if you look at some of the players that have played for England over the years its always been a GB team by default anyway

[sussexpob]

wont happen but I kinda agree with the comment M-S made in the other thread , the ECB already covers England and wales, and has agreements with the irish cricket board as well, so why not just make England a GB team , tbh if you look at some of the players that have played for England over the years its always been a GB team by default anyway

Not sure from an economical level that would work, and what can Ireland/Scotland bring to the table apart from the odd player England produces anyway?

[Aidan11]

wont happen but I kinda agree with the comment M-S made in the other thread , the ECB already covers England and wales, and has agreements with the irish cricket board as well, so why not just make England a GB team , tbh if you look at some of the players that have played for England over the years its always been a GB team by default anyway

We also seem to get a fair number of Aussies & South Africans.

[rich1uk]

wont happen but I kinda agree with the comment M-S made in the other thread , the ECB already covers England and wales, and has agreements with the irish cricket board as well, so why not just make England a GB team , tbh if you look at some of the players that have played for England over the years its always been a GB team by default anyway

Not sure from an economical level that would work, and what can Ireland/Scotland bring to the table apart from the odd player England produces anyway?

what economic changes would there need to be ?

we basically have one county system supporting all three anyway , why should there be three national teams representing what is in effect one system ? the England team isn't really a national team anyway, it is the representative team of the England and Wales cricket board, we have Irish and Scottish players being developed by counties that are supported financially by the ECB already and then people moan when the ECB select them.

[Aidan11]

If Ireland were to play in a first class tournament - say the Sheffield Shield - they would struggle.

No good them joining the County Championship as their players are already with the counties.

Nothing wrong with them competing at ODI level but tests are out of the question.

[sussexpob]

what economic changes would there need to be ?

Lots for that to work, if the ECB were to accept responsibility for Irish cricket and Scottish cricket, they would have to also extend the same wealth sharing to elements of their grassroots and regional systems, but how much more value in terms of the pot are these organisations to the income?

The ECB funds the county system, and in turn I think Sport England contributes a hell of a lot too.... could an English charity system continue to do this for a British and Irish organisation, at disproportionate levels to the other board systems?

[rich1uk]

Ireland want to expand but in the short term they cant do that without actually going backwards

To expand and grow as an international cricket nation they need their own infrastructure and first class system, but that would probably result in most of their current players losing out on the special status they get within the county system. players would end up either having to play at a lower level in Ireland which wouldn't help them individually, be treated as overseas players by counties and subject to the ECB quotas or retire from international cricket and be counted as kolpaks.

[yuppie]

What is being done to support a county league in Ireland so as they can try to achieve their goal of playing test cricket? What happens to the ICC money they are allocated to develop cricket in Ireland?

And if Ireland does develop a county system this would not be in the best interest of the English country system as it would limit the players they have access to. Its not in the interest of the counties in England for Ireland to develop its own county system, but ultimately it would be in the interest of the Irish Cricket board.

Do we as follows of cricket want the game to grow or are we happy with the way it is, slowly loosing interest in England, NZ, WI, SA and being dominated by one board with its 2 puppet followers? A Game that has the same series being played every 2 years and the same teams playing each other so regularly that the game is now reaching saturation point for certain teams.

I personally think it would be great to see a test match between England and Ireland but agree that their needs to be a infrastructure in place that enables Ireland to pick players from its own domestic league. This is the same for Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Holland, Scotland, Kenya and many others who aspire to play the game competitively at international level. For some the game of cricket is starting to loose its appeal due to the limited number of teams and how often they play. New teams with solid foundations need to be encouraged, but the opposite is happening.

[andy]

do we have to have this debate every time Ireland win a game of cricket??? It would be great if they got test status, but it simply wont happen..

[Making_Splinters]

I'm well and truly sick and tired hearing about Irish test cricket.

A couple of years back, Warren Deutrom stated that Ireland would be playing Test cricket by 2020. We're nearly half way to that now and there has been little to no progress on the main stumbling block for Irish cricket, its domestic structure.

Yes they launched the Inter-Provincial championship two years ago but that's a 3 day cricket played between three teams. Ireland has a similar population to New Zealand and there is simply no comparision between the level of domestic cricket in the two countries. One has to ask, where has the additional £1,000,000 Irish cricket was given by the ICC to develop cricket in Ireland gone?

If you look at another associate side in Afghanistan, they have developed their grass roots cricket and are rapidly becoming a very competitive side without the need for a sugar daddy doing all their dirty work for them. So what is the Irish excuse?

Everyone should start promoting a side that has developed cricket in their country on their own for Test status. Here's a clue it's not the Irish parasites.

[sussexpob]

UAE could be an interesting one in the next decade or so, considering the migrant worker population from Pakistan and India the native interest is there, the ICC is based there, and the money is there. Could see them rapidly rise

[Making_Splinters]

At the end of the day, there is a simple point to be made. If the best Irish cricket can independently support is a competition between three sides - largely made up of imports by the way - then there is no conceivable way they can support a test side.

People have to look beyond the performance of the Irish team, which is largely nothing to do with Irish cricket, and ask is there any foundations of a Test nation in Ireland. The answer is no.

That should be the end of the matter.

[SaintPowelly]

What Ireland need is more ODI games against top 8 sides, the best way to achieve it is to add them to random ODI series and make them tri-series.

Currently they will get 1 ODI against Aus when they tour here and thats about it. Random series like NZ-SL or Pak-WI could easily incorporate Ireland