No place in county cricket for Irish stars

IRELAND’s leading players face the sobering prospect of exclusion from the English domestic game now their Test dream has become a reality.

Ireland captain William Porterfield, one-time England bowler Boyd rankin and Paul stirling and Tim Murtagh, of champions Middlesex, are among eight contracted county cricketers who will not be permitted to continue as locals in England beyond september 2019.

The England and Wales Cricket Board set that deadline following the granting of Test status to Ireland a fortnight ago, although those whose current deals expire this year or in 2018 remain free to negotiate extensions up to the cut-off date.

Afterwards, those wanting to represent Ireland will only be allowed to feature in England as overseas players, potentially leaving them to choose between international careers and long-term financial security. Those who relinquish their Irish status — to serve a notional seven-year qualification period for England — will be free to continue in the English system.

Cricket Ireland, who have been in talks with the ECB on the issue for months, are braced for the latter scenario.

richard Holdsworth, Ireland’s performance director, said: ‘Yes, it could happen but we hope that by then we will be in a far better position financially to be able to remunerate those players, certainly to the level that they are remunerated at the moment in terms of their joint contracts with Cricket Ireland and their counties.

‘Throughout our pursuit of Test status we knew this would be on the cards and that we couldn’t have our cake and eat it when it came to county cricket.’

derbyshire Twenty20 captain Gary Wilson, durham duo stuart Poynter and Barry McCarthy and Warwickshire’s Mark Adair complete the Ireland players on Category B contracts who play in county cricket.