Test Cricket for Ireland?

[meninblue]

After their win versus WI i had opined that test status should not be decided on ODI match, likewise on this bashing match i would not consider them to be out of test status. The paramenters they have to be judged should be the relevant ones, which imo are how much is their bench strength which is important once key players get injured, how good are their key players for test format, how good is their domestic cricketing system to supply the relevant format cricketers, how good they are doing in 4 day matches etc.

Currently, their only outstanding player in English county cricket is 36....

I guess you are referring to Ed Joyce. At least they will have a brilliant slip fielder who has experience of slips in England county Their slip cordon will be competitive for sure.

[Alviro Patterson]

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

With clever scheduling, England and Ireland could host a quadrangular series with the two touring test nation sides during June/July. Teams play each other twice (6 games), top two go through to the final, tournament takes 3 weeks long.

This guarantees Ireland 6 ODIs per year.
England play meaningful ODI cricket, though it means traditional home ODI series with touring nations become a maximum of 3. Then again ODIs in England are generally anti-climatic, especially after tests.

[Alviro Patterson]

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

The current UAE side are no mugs, technically good batsmen who play proper strokes and bowlers with raw pace. Could have beat Zimbabwe if their batsmen ran with more urgency between the wickets, lost 10 runs from that.

[Alviro Patterson]

Hmm...are you sure?

Reading the rules here together: http://www.avoncroftcc.co.uk/resources/ ... d+Code.pdf

These rules mean that an EEA national has an unrestricted right to play in county cricket, even if they had played first class cricket or test cricket for a full member country within the EEA. It also means that British or Irish citizens can play for the England team once they had been resident in England and Wales for 4 years and during those 4 years not played test cricket for a full member outside the EEA or played first class cricket outside of the EEA.

I think the rules are such that it could easily be argued that the residency requirement does not require absolutely continuous residence, but rather habitual residence (where it is you normally consider "home" and have your bills paid and live etc) because otherwise requirement 1.3 is unnecessary/redundant (it wouldn't be physically possible for someone to play first class cricket outside the EEA if they had to be resident 365.25 days per year in England or Wales.

If Ireland has the same rules it could mean that Irish test players could possibly be considered as resident in Ireland and still turn out for county championship matches.

Technically that is correct, no different to Scotland/Wales/Ireland international footballers plying their trade in English football.

But it's whether counties would still persist with Ireland international cricketers upon being awarded test status. Even if Ireland only host one home series per season, Ireland internationals will miss half a season in County Cricket and that's not taking any possible participation in IPL or Caribbean T20. Add the ECB paying counties to develop England players, Irish cricketers lose their value in county cricket unless if they intend to commit to County Cricket for much of their career or even qualify for England selection.

[ChrisQ]

Hmm...are you sure?

Reading the rules here together: http://www.avoncroftcc.co.uk/resources/ ... d+Code.pdf

These rules mean that an EEA national has an unrestricted right to play in county cricket, even if they had played first class cricket or test cricket for a full member country within the EEA. It also means that British or Irish citizens can play for the England team once they had been resident in England and Wales for 4 years and during those 4 years not played test cricket for a full member outside the EEA or played first class cricket outside of the EEA.

I think the rules are such that it could easily be argued that the residency requirement does not require absolutely continuous residence, but rather habitual residence (where it is you normally consider "home" and have your bills paid and live etc) because otherwise requirement 1.3 is unnecessary/redundant (it wouldn't be physically possible for someone to play first class cricket outside the EEA if they had to be resident 365.25 days per year in England or Wales.

If Ireland has the same rules it could mean that Irish test players could possibly be considered as resident in Ireland and still turn out for county championship matches.

Technically that is correct, no different to Scotland/Wales/Ireland international footballers plying their trade in English football.

But it's whether counties would still persist with Ireland international cricketers upon being awarded test status. Even if Ireland only host one home series per season, Ireland internationals will miss half a season in County Cricket and that's not taking any possible participation in IPL or Caribbean T20. Add the ECB paying counties to develop England players, Irish cricketers lose their value in county cricket unless if they intend to commit to County Cricket for much of their career or even qualify for England selection.

Good point. The theoretical Irish home season would make most active Irish test players less attractive to the English counties. So in the end it might well be only a few marginal Irish test players who could end up playing for the counties while mainly Irish county players and those wishing to commit fully to English county cricket and possibly England end up being the more attractive options....

[Alviro Patterson]

You only need to look at the Interprovincial Championship scores to show Ireland are nowhere near ready for test cricket. If sub 250 totals became a commonplace in the County Championship, clubs would be accused of preparing poor pitches and be on the receiving end of points deductions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Inter ... p#Fixtures
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Inter ... p#Fixtures

A 2018 target of Ireland achieving test status is optimistic, 2025 is probably realistic as by then the First Class competition will have improved through the next generation of players.

The European Associates have a geographical advantage compared to other ICC associates and I am surprised Ireland, Scotland and the Netherlands haven't got together and created a First Class competition between them. Say 3 teams from each country, creating one league of 9, play each other once (8 games). A 3 day competition immediately followed by a 1 day competition and a Twenty20 tournament somewhere in the mix.

Three associates nations credentials improve in one fowl swoop, Ireland's call for test cricket becomes less reliable on County Cricket and the ICC Cricket World Cup can sustain a 16 man tournament, both competitively and commercially.

Longer term other European Countries look to join the Euro League, eventually creating a European Twenty20 Champions League that will rival the IPL.

[ChrisQ]

Well there actually was a plan for a Celtic Championship (see page 6) between the winner of the Irish inter-provincial championship and the winner of the Scottish Pro-Series....but the Scottish Pro-Series never really got off the ground with the first 3-day match being abandoned after 10 overs in 2013 (and the second match never being staged it seems).

A revival of that with the inclusion of the Netherlands would be a good idea. A cheaper option than having 9 teams playing in a round robin league would be for Scotland, Ireland and the Netherlands to have their individual 3 day competitions (with Ireland having a 3 team competition; Scotland having a 2 team competition and the Netherlands having maybe 2 teams like Scotland - perhaps with the Scottish and Dutch competitions being quadruple round robin with 4 matches in all in each competition) with the top 2 Irish teams then qualifying for the European Championship alongside the winners of the Scottish and Dutch competitions. Four teams playing each other once (6 games total)

[andy]

appears they have lost Phil Simmons to the windies, rumours gathering speed as well that Andy Flower could be set to take over..

[Making_Splinters]

With Ireland's exit from the World Cup this entire issue will go away. They've had their 50 seconds.

[andy]

amen to that

[Alviro Patterson]

Given Ireland's recent showing against a transitional Sri Lanka side in the recent ODI series, ideas of test cricket come 2018 seem a touch optimistic. Best they can hope for is the ODI Championship to come into frutition, followed by fellow European ICC Associates getting together and creating a Pan-European Domestic One Day League.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Ireland were quite strong about 5-10 years ago, so it might be expected that they'd have some good players coming through who were inspired by that team. I hope that's the case, but doesn't seem to happening yet.

[dan08]

Clearly they don't have anyone coming through as they've still got Gary Wilson in their side. He's a completely useless cricketer.

[Dr Cricket]

Ireland were quite strong about 5-10 years ago, so it might be expected that they'd have some good players coming through who were inspired by that team. I hope that's the case, but doesn't seem to happening yet.

TBH Ireland had a gun generation and they did a good thing in at least using the gun generation to promote cricket in Ireland far more and putting associate cricket in the forefront.
Scotland might thank Ireland a lot for this later on.

from the European associates Scotland got the best youngsters coming through, reckon they may be pushing Afghanistan and the top associates and lower full members in the future and would probably have more opportunities at the bigger games than Ireland got.

Although Scotland would be facing competition from Asia considering ICC want Cricket in Nepal, USA, China etc far more than promoting the likes of Scotland.

[sussexpob]

Ireland were quite strong about 5-10 years ago, so it might be expected that they'd have some good players coming through who were inspired by that team. I hope that's the case, but doesn't seem to happening yet.

How many of these cricketers are a consequence of Irish development? Botha took a job as a club professional while playing South Africa and transferred over with promise of international cricket, Trent Johnson was an Aussie that met an Irish wife and moved there. Ed Joyce was from a huge Irish cricketing family with 5 international caps in his direct family, but he was spotted for a junior Irish side and came through at Middlesex, which is the same as Boyd Rankin. Eion Morgan went to Dulwich College where he learnt the game and subsequently signed for Middlesex. Portfield had been on the second XI scene (played for 4 counties) and played for an MCC development team before representing Ireland at any level.

Paul Stirling and the O Brien brothers are possibly the only ones I am aware of that were capped before involvement of an English county side, but then again all three were very young when debuted and subsequently signed county deals the second Ireland had capped them. So in terms of actual development, you could say they all became first class worthy cricketers after English involvement.