CHENNAI: Kingston. Bengaluru. Nelson. The names of those three cities have gone down in Irish cricketing folklore. A fourth, Malahide, some 15 kms from Dublin, will be added to that most exclusive of cities on Friday. When William Porterfield, the Ireland captain, walks out for the toss with Pakistan’s Sarfraz Ahmed, a piece of history will be written.
Ireland will become the first men’s team (their women’s team has already played a Test) since Bangladesh in 2000 to make Test debut. And it’s been some ride. One member of Cricket Ireland who has been throughout the trip is CEO Warren Deutrom, who was appointed in 2006. In an interview with Express, he speaks on a variety of topics... A vision to make Ireland a Test-playing nation was formulated after their win against England at the 2011 World Cup.
Did you believe you could have become one as early as 2018? There was, trust me, a bit of scepticism about whether it was something we should even strive towards. But I always believed there was sufficient talent on the pitch and ambition and talent off it. If I felt everybody was going to tell me ‘that this (striving for Test status) wasn’t going to work’, then we wouldn’t have gone for it. We had support from players, board members, volunteers and so on. Sometimes it felt we were overly ambitious and the doors weren’t opening the way they should have done. But, hey, here we stand. What’s next on the itinerary? The bilateral nature of matches on the FTP still need to be agreed. But, by and large, the rule of thumb is that you bear their costs when they come to you and vice-versa.
That’s slightly different when we were an Associate. When we used to travel, we still used to bear a lot of the costs. The major difference is obviously the cost of Test cricket itself. Particularly in our country because our major venues don’t have sophisticated permanent infrastructure. One main reason for the cost of this Test being one million euros is the temporary infrastructure. Has CI come up with a solution? We have our eyes on a permanent site at Dublin. We are engaging with the government over that. We are putting a design concept. Once that is done, we know how much it is going to cost. After that, a proposal will be drafted within three months.
There are lots of steps. Bowling the first ball there won’t possible for another 4-5 years. Ireland, Afghanistan and Zimbabwe sit outside the Test championship ambit. Do you agree in such a segregation even amongst full members? It takes new entrants years, if not decades, to start to become comfortable with the format. Rather than parachuting Ireland and Afghanistan to play 8-10 Tests in a year, which is going to be time-consuming and costly, this system is better. It may also impede our chances to be successful in the other two formats.
We do have the opportunity to play against ourselves and also the opportunity of playing the odd Test against the other nine teams. That’s a measured way to get used to the rhythm of the game. Will Ireland have the power to stop losing its marquee players to England? I don’t think we can ever say: ‘We will never have another Irish cricketer who will go on to represent England.” But what I can tell you is that the job of Cricket Ireland is to make sure the attractiveness of playing for Ireland is such that players don’t need to play for England.
The reason that was often cited in the past was Tests. We can offer that now. Will Ireland look into the prospect of enticing a few England players with a promise of a Test career? It would be wrong. It’s important to say England didn’t actively court Irish cricketers. Irish cricketers went on to their earn their living in England by virtue of being county cricketers... it was fair game for England to say “well, you play here, live here. So you now have the choice of representing England.”
That’s a fairer thing to do. If we had a number of England cricketers who played in our domestic competition and stayed here for a period of time and got houses, girlfriends and wives... then that becomes a more reasonable thing to do. Ireland has been vocal against the 10-team World Cup? Has the stance changed? It would be hypocritical to change it now that we are a full member. But I want to stress that we are not using that as an excuse for our lack of success in qualifying events. We had our opportunities to qualify and we didn’t grasp them (2019 WC). But it doesn’t change our view that we believe that a 10-team event isn’t the best way forward for our sport. We believe a 14-team one is ideal.
swaroop@newindianexpress.com