Cricket: Ireland’s unlikely success
This is a historic time for Irish cricket, said Tim Wigmore in The Independent. Just over a decade ago, Ireland “had never played an official OneDay International (ODI)”, and the sport’s governing body had only one full-time member of staff – the national coach, whose “car boot doubled as the storage room for the team’s kit”. In a 2001 tournament in Canada, the team even had to draft in a journalist to serve as its 12th man. Yet now they’re on course to be granted full Test status in June, along with Afghanistan.
The change has been extraordinary, said George Dobell on Espncricinfo.com. Thanks to the emergence of a generation of talented cricketers, Ireland have punched above their weight in the last three World Cups, beating big beasts Pakistan, England and West Indies. And last week they played (but lost) two ODIS against England, their first encounter this side of the Irish Sea. As a result, the game has enjoyed a surge in popularity. Some 52,000 people now play cricket in Ireland, “up from 11,000 in 2007”. Last week’s ODIS were broadcast live on subscription TV, and garnered a full-page preview in the country’s largest broadsheet newspaper. There’s more money in it, too, said Ali Martin in The Guardian. Cricket Ireland now boasts 30 staff, an academy, and 19 players on central contracts of up to s70,000 – “no mean feat” given the “inequality” that used to define world cricket. When Ireland reached the Super Eight stage of the 2007 World Cup, for example, they received just $56,000, a fraction of the $11m that full ICC member Zimbabwe took for doing the same.
But the irony, said Mike Atherton in The Times, is that Ireland’s elevation to the big time comes just as the team itself is struggling. With the “golden generation” now in the twilight of their careers – captain William Porterfield is 32, star batsman Ed Joyce is 38 – Ireland have been supplanted as the “top-dog associate team” by Afghanistan. “In the past two years, they’ve lost twice as many ODIS as they have won.” Irish cricket still has a long way to go, said Jonathan Liew in The Daily Telegraph. Still, a sport hitherto “derided” as a pursuit for Dublin’s upper-class set “is now part of the national conversation”. That, surely, is some achievement.