{"id":147663,"date":"2025-09-16T15:18:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T15:18:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/147663\/"},"modified":"2025-09-16T15:18:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T15:18:07","slug":"irelands-near-empty-cricket-summer-in-stark-contrast-to-stacked-england-slate-ireland-cricket-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/147663\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland\u2019s near-empty cricket summer in stark contrast to stacked England slate | Ireland Cricket Team"},"content":{"rendered":"

For England this is the end of another unrelenting summer. Three Twenty20 internationals over the coming days will make it eight white-ball matches inside three weeks, excluding a rain-abandoned game against South Africa<\/a>. Jacob Bethell is captain because Harry Brook merits a lie down<\/a> in a dark room. For Ireland, their opponents in Malahide, north Dublin, it is a radically different story.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels like the start of our winter programme,\u201d says Paul Stirling, Ireland\u2019s white-ball captain. \u201cWe haven\u2019t played a home international series since the West Indies in June. It feels like we\u2019ve closed the summer.\u201d Those three T20s in Bready three months ago included two washouts, adding to an already shrinking itinerary.<\/p>\n

A lack of cricket at home is an ongoing problem. Last year Cricket<\/a> Ireland called off a tour by Australia, and Afghanistan\u2019s visit this summer was also cancelled, the governing body citing \u201cfinancial reasons\u201d. With no permanent stadium infrastructure, the costs of transforming club grounds into international venues has been a major stumbling block.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe effectively have to build everything,\u201d says Warren Deutrom, who stepped away as CI\u2019s chief executive last month after 19 years in the job. Up go the temporary stands for England\u2019s visit.<\/p>\n

Yet these cancellations come as CI\u2019s annual income jumped from \u20ac10.2m to \u20ac16.4m in 2024 thanks to increased funding from the International Cricket Council. Deutrom\u2019s retort is that the governing body has had to direct more attention to other areas of the sport.<\/p>\n

The cost of transforming club grounds in Ireland into international venues have proved problematic. Photograph: Donall Farmer\/PA<\/p>\n

\u201cOff the back of the new ICC funding that came into this cycle, our board made the very tough decision that said: \u2018Look, we can\u2019t keep focusing all of our resources on the men\u2019s international game.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Deutrom points to investment in the women\u2019s game: \u201cWe take our obligation extremely seriously to be a full member that is as serious about ensuring the development of our women\u2019s international team as much as it is our men\u2019s international team.\u201d Growing professionalisation has helped Ireland women to win 26 of their past 30 T20s, including a first victory against England (albeit a second-string XI) in the format last year.<\/p>\n

Attention has gone towards facilities as CI is due to co-host the 2030 men\u2019s T20 World Cup with England and Scotland. Last year brought the major announcement of government approval to develop a stadium in west Dublin, with the intention that it is ready for the tournament. \u201cInevitably we\u2019ll have some temporary infrastructure costs at a new stadium, but nothing like that [in Malahide],\u201d Deutrom says of the project. CI says most of the funding will come from the Irish\u00a0government.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always felt that the lack of permanent infrastructure marked us out as a minnow sport in Ireland. We\u2019re now going to be able to say: \u2018This is us, this is our home.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

However, a short-term concern remains. In January it was announced that the ICC had sanctioned the European T20 Premier League (ETPL), a new franchise tournament pushed forward by CI alongside the boards of Scotland and the Netherlands, in partnership with an Indian company called Rules Sport Tech and with the Bollywood actor Abhishek Bachchan on board as an investor.<\/p>\n

It mirrored a league CI had tried to launch in 2019 with another organiser, the Euro T20 Slam. Primed to give Irish and associate players a platform with matches in Amsterdam, Dublin and Edinburgh, the Slam even had a player draft. Eoin Morgan was signed to represent Dublin Chiefs but never did face Rotterdam Rhinos and Glasgow Giants. The tournament, short on funds, was called off two weeks before its start.<\/p>\n

Bachchan and Deutrom gave interviews at the start of the year promoting the ETPL, envisaging that the first edition of the six-team men\u2019s tournament would begin in July. But there were few other details to share, with no franchise owners to reveal. An inevitable postponement to 2026 was confirmed in June. Another event was rubbed off the players\u2019 calendars. CI, meanwhile, had projected in its 2024 accounts that the ETPL would provide \u201ca strong commercial income on an annual basis\u201d.<\/p>\n

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That same month brought the news of Deutrom\u2019s resignation, ending a tenure that oversaw Ireland\u2019s rise from World Cup giantkillers to the exclusive club of Test nations. \u201cIt was entirely my call,\u201d he says, when asked if the decision was his own. A key part of it, he claims, was to dedicate more focus to the ETPL. Deutrom remains the league\u2019s chair, unwilling to let this dream die, yet he admits his future on the board remains uncertain. \u201cI so firmly believe in this as a concept,\u201d he says, adding his desire to one day see franchise teams in Italy and Germany.<\/p>\n

Ireland\u2019s women have won 26 of their past 30 T20s, including a first victory against England. Photograph: Damien Eagers\/PA<\/p>\n

Deutrom says the league realised its \u201ctimelines were too ambitious\u201d in trying to launch this year. Oakvale Capital, a financial advisory group, has been enlisted \u201cto hopefully do what Raine Group so successfully did for the ECB\u201d \u2013 a reference to the advisers who helped the England and Wales Cricket Board to sell its Hundred teams. \u201cWe are engaged with IPL franchises,\u201d Deutrom says.<\/p>\n

But will this imaginative concept ever amount to anything after a series of embarrassing postponements? The players, meanwhile, wait for some action. \u201cUntil that ball is in the opening bowler\u2019s hand and the batter\u2019s put his pads on, there\u2019s no point in focusing on it too much,\u201d says Stirling.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really hope [the ETPL] does happen. It\u2019s probably one of the single most important things for us as a T20 team if we\u2019re going to get any better.\u201d Overseas coaches and players sharing their knowledge will \u201cimprove the whole system from top down\u201d.<\/p>\n

Stirling cannot properly assess where his side are at as they welcome England, a reminder of this contest\u2019s structural inequality. He lists all the cricket Ireland\u2019s opponents have played in recent months, including the Hundred. \u201cThey\u2019ll be at the complete opposite end of the spectrum.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For England this is the end of another unrelenting summer. Three Twenty20 internationals over the coming days will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147664,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-147663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147663\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}