Ireland’s unlikely rise from insular amateurs to genuine Test nation
The visit of Pakistan to Malahide has been 16 years in the making, writes Tim Wigmore
In early 2002, Adi Birrell, Ireland’s new cricket coach, addressed the squad at a team meeting. He laid out a route map for how Ireland could become the 11th men’s Test-playing nation. It prompted guffaws from some players. “There was a bit of disbelief,” recalls Kyle Mccallan, who played with distinction for Ireland from 1996 to 2009. “We had been quite insular – a small-island mentality, a wee bit of inferiority complex.”
John Mooney, who had recently broken into the side, remembers that “there were loads of things that we laughed at back in the day”.
They had good reason to laugh at Birrell’s plans, which will bear fruit today when Ireland play Pakistan at Malahide in their first Test. Ireland’s players in 2002 were all amateur. In their futile attempt to qualify for the World Cup a year earlier, they infamously had to use a journalist from The Irish Times as a substitute fielder, and finished below Denmark and the United States. At the time, Ed Joyce was becoming established as the first Irish player to have a long-term county career for 50 years. Ireland had no chief executive or office. When Birrell took over as head coach, he was given a car – and told that the boot doubled as the storeroom for Ireland’s kit.
When they played against English counties, Mccallan remembers, the aim was some semblance of respectability.
“The general attitude was, ‘who can I swap my shirt with?’ They would bat first, get the runs and we would try and make as much of a game as we could.”
While Irish cricket had a deep history, those competing treated it like a secret society, knowing they risked being castigated for playing an English sport. Cricket was banned by the Gaelic Athletic Association in 1901. The ban remained for 70 years; the legacy survived much longer. In the 1980s and 1990s, Joyce used to hide his bat on the train in Dublin. Growing up in Fingal, Mooney “used to not tell people that I played cricket”, keeping it even from his classmates.
The notion that Ireland would ever play a Test was “incredible”. Ireland’s tale is a remarkable case study in how a nation can take a niche sport and thrust it into the public imagination.
In 1998, Brian O’rourke was appointed as the first full-time cricket development manager in Ireland, working in Leinster. His work and that of many volunteers helped inspire and nurture the best generation of young cricketers that Ireland had ever produced. A squad including Kevin O’brien, Boyd Rankin, Gary Wilson, William Porterfield and Eoin Morgan represented Ireland in the Under-19 World Cup in 2004. All five are still playing international cricket – and four for Ireland.
Yet Ireland had always produced fine young players. What changed was not just the number, but what they had to aspire to. Joyce’s success in county cricket, scoring his first century for Middlesex in 2001, made counties newly aware of the talent that existed across the Irish Sea.
At a time when Ireland had no cash to pay players properly, this meant that their cricketers could still become professional, and learn from playing on the county circuit.
In small organisations, the importance of leadership is magnified. Ireland’s fortune, and skill, was to discover a generation of fine leaders.
Since 2006, Warren Deutrom has been an inspirational chief executive, continually pushing Cricket Ireland’s understanding of what is possible, taking risks – like selling out 9,500 seats for a one-day international against England in 2013, when putting up the stands alone cost the organisation 10 per cent of their turnover at the time.
There were also a series of outstanding coaches: Mike Hendrick, the first ever full-time coach, led Ireland to their first victory over a county in 1997; Birrell forged a professional mindset before Ireland could fund professionalism; and Phil Simmons, coach from 2007 to 2015, taught Ireland how to dominate at Associate level.
The single most important step in popularising Irish cricket was World Cup success. Ireland reached their first ever World Cup in 2007, and defeated five Test nations over the past three tournaments – more, indeed, than England. “That was the catalyst, that was our springboard,” says Mccallan of Ireland’s elevation to Test status. “How could it ever have happened without us getting to that World Cup in 2007?”
These World Cup triumphs – above all an astonishing victory over England in Bangalore in 2011, the highest ever run chase in World Cup history – catapulted Irish cricket onto the front pages and inspired a new generation.
“When Ireland beats England at any sport, it’s a special moment, so for that to happen in a World Cup, it was just really, really special for the country,” says Mooney. “It’s all been about the World Cups. We are great bandwagon jumpers. If we do well in a World Cup, you’ll see Irish people jump out of the woodwork from everywhere.”
This journey has done much more than bring Irish cricket glorious days. It has also had a greater significance – as “an absolute shining light of what can be achieved through sport and friendship for the whole country of Ireland,” says Mooney. “It’s enjoyed by all of the country – no matter whether North and South, what your background, what your religion. That’s what’s brilliant about cricket and hopefully will enable it to become an even bigger sport in the future.”
“You can be a staunch nationalist from Dublin or a unionist from the North – everyone has a common goal which is the betterment of Irish cricket,” says Mccallan, a Protestant from Northern Ireland.
“I do think that society could learn a bit from how cricket is managed. It’s pretty multicultural and very accepting of all. As we are in Northern Ireland at the moment, I think our politicians could look at cricket for some examples.”
In the years ahead, there will be many unforgiving sessions and days in Test cricket for Ireland; times when the step up looks like a chasm. Yet Malahide today, when history is made, will be an extraordinary scene – one that most in Irish cricket did not dare dream would ever come.
“It’s going to be a pretty proud day,” says Mccallan; like many other former players, he will be there for the Test. “We’ve got to stick firmly to what Irish cricket stands for.”