There will be ructions if the ICC doesn’t give Joyce dispensation to play in the World Cup.
Was at the Ireland Pakistan game in Stormont yesterday. Well, I was there for the Ireland innings as there was some egg-chasing fans in our group so we gave up on the cricket after Ireland had been bundled out for 96. Paul Stirling played some cracking shots. Made 39 off 22, but that was it for us really. The middle-order was particularly disappointing. Kevin O’Brien wrecked my head. He came in at 51/4 and started throwing the bat around as if it was the last over. We really needed someone to settle in and try to bat through the innings, or even for 20 overs, but nobody was either up for or capable of that it seemed. A very disappointing performance in the context of the pending ICC decision on the next World Cup.
Better show today by the sounds of things anyway. Stirling continued to good form he showed glimpses of on Saturday and went on to make a century at just quicker than a run a ball. We ended up making 238 and they chased it down with 8 balls and five wickets to spare. Umar Akmal made an unbeaten 60 from 47 balls to seal it.
On the verge of beating Namibia at Stormont in our first game in the Intercontinental Cup 2011/13. Need 38 runs with 6 wickets remaining. Dockrell on course to be man of the match. Took five in the first innings and three in the second. Also chipped in with an important 53 in the first innings, forming an important partnership with White late on to save us from a dangerous position. White made an unbeaten 123, and is currently at the crease with Kevin O’Brien.
I think it’s important that we reclaim this title to firmly establish our credentials as the top Associate nation. This would be a good win without Porterfield, Joyce, Niall O’Brien, Johnson and Rankin too.
This is a 4 day match braz? So they need 38 runs to win on the last day?
That’s correct Fitzy, and they finished it off with the loss of one more wicket. The Intercontinental Cup is the four-day league for the Associates. It is run over two years. I think we won it three times in a row, but relinquished it to Afghanistan last time around. We’re playing Canada next week. I think it’s on in Rathgar and starting on Wednesday. If it is still in the balance on Saturday I might give a wander down to it.
Cricket Ireland set out their vision for the future today. Fair play to them, they don’t seem like an organisation to rest on their laurels anyway. It is quite ambitious, I can’t see anyway we will achieve Test status in eight years. I’d like to see more flesh on the proposed first-class structure too. Good to see Simmons is sticking around for another while.
Vision to 2020 – Ireland a Test Nation
Cricket Ireland today set out a bold Vision for the future of the game in Ireland that includes Ireland becoming a full Test nation by 2020.
The Vision was set out as part of a series of major announcements made by Cricket Ireland today. Chief Executive, Warren Deutrom outlined the ambition as he unveiled the new strategic plan for Irish Cricket to 2015. The plan sets out a series of stretching goals including increasing the number of participants in the game to 50,000, setting a target of reaching 8th in the World rankings, establish a domestic first-class cricket structure and reinforcing cricket as the 4th major team sport in Ireland.
Deutrom commented: “We have set ourselves a very clear long-term ambition – to become a full Test Nation by 2020, nothing less. This is not a dreamy aspiration but a real ambition founded on the playing talent being developed on this island, the growing passion and profile of the game here, a sustained and proven track record of achievement on and off the field, and a clear roadmap set out by us for how to get there.”
Phil Simmons extends contract
Cricket Ireland also announced today major developments relating to the international team. It was announced that Phil Simmons, National Coach, has agreed to extend his contract for a further two years which will see him continue at the helm until at least the end of the World Cup group stage qualification at the end of 2013.
Reflecting on his decision to extend his contract, Simmons said: “I have enjoyed every minute of my involvement with the Irish set up since I came on board in 2007. We have achieved great things so far but there is far more to come.”
23 Player Contracts Awarded
As an additional boost Cricket Ireland also announced that they have offered 23 contracts to players for 2012 – a record number of player contracts. The contracts include 12 first-choice senior squad players on category A and B contracts plus an additional 11 players on category C contracts.
Commenting on the contracts, Phil Simmons National Coach said: “A key part of our success to date has been the move to professionalism. With so many players on full or part time contracts we now have a structure supporting the Senior squad as well as our succession planning to make sure we can maintain our competitiveness on the International stage.”
The full list of player contract awards is:
Category A: Alex Cusack, Trent Johnston, John Mooney, Kevin O’Brien.
Category B: William Porterfield, George Dockrell,Ed Joyce, Niall O’Brien, Boyd Rankin, Paul Stirling, Andrew White, Gary Wilson.
Category C: Andrew Balbirnie, Peter Connell, Tom Fisher, Shane Getkate, Nigel Jones, Rory McCann, Andrew Poynter, James Shannon, Max Sorensen, Stuart Thompson, Albert van der Merwe.
Grass Roots Initiatives
Reflecting the rising popularity of the game in Ireland, Cricket Ireland committed to developing the grass roots of the sport over the next four years. New plans were unveiled to provide a significant boost to the domestic game with a series of initiatives designed to strengthen the game on the Island and help achieve the ambitious target of 50,000 participants by 2015.
The initiatives include:[list]
[]The ‘Get into Cricket Scheme ‘a major new programme targeting schools and clubs encouraging 6 to 12 years olds to take up the game for the first time
[]The National Cup – a new domestic National club competition for clubs not already competing in the Bob Kerr Irish Senior Cup. This provides 32 new clubs with the chance to compete for an All Ireland title and the opportunity to play cricket outside of their local area
[]The ‘Better Clubs Initiative’ – an innovative programme supporting local clubs across the country to improve their facilities. This programme is a volunteering initiative aimed at encouraging local cricket supporters, their friend and families to undertake work to improve the facilities at their local club houses and grounds
[]The Cricket Ireland National Awards – a major awards event recognising players, coaches, volunteers, groundsmen, officials and clubs for the contribution they make to the game in Ireland. This will be an annual event starting in 2012
[]The establishment of Regional Academies to develop and foster the young talent from the ages of 15 to 19 and ensure a pipeline of players for our International teams
[]The re-launch of the Inter-Pro Series as a pre-cursor to setting up a first class domestic playing infrastructure in Ireland.
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In launching these initiatives Cricket Ireland CEO Warren Deutrom said, “Our commitment to the game at the Grass Roots level will hopefully make a real difference on the ground. We wanted to increase our support to give as much attention to the domestic game as we have to the International teams in the last four years.”
Cricket Ireland Performance Director Richard Holdsworth commented “Our strategic plan has set out a strong focus on strengthening the game from the bottom up. We have seen what we have achieved with the International team – we now hope to deliver equally impressive results with the growth of the game locally.”
Sky coverage of RSA Challenge
Cricket Ireland also announced today that Sky Sports has agreed to broadcast live ball-by-ball coverage of the RSA Challenge versus Australia on Saturday 23rd June in Belfast. Reflecting on the announcement, Warren Deutrom CEO Cricket Ireland noted: “It is rare indeed that Sky puts its own cameras into a non-England fixture and we believe this is a sure sign of the growing interest in the Irish game and a further indication of the progress we are making.”
Tickets for the encounter are already on sale through Ticketmaster with early ticket sales proving very strong and another full house expected for the RSA Challenge.
Increased commercial funding
Finally, Cricket Ireland also announced that it has reached agreement on a series of new commercial funding deals that will underpin all of the programmes outlined in the strategic plan. The new commercial deals provide a financial stability that allows the initiatives outlined in the strategic plan become a reality.
Commenting on these deals Warren Deutrom CEO said “We have and will continue to receive fantastic support from RSA Insurance as our main commercial partner and we look forward to extending the scale and scope of that support. A formal announcement of this and other commercial deals will be made in the coming weeks. This allows us to proceed with confidence as we work towards our vision of becoming a Test nation by 2020.”
Does that contract mean that Niall O’Brien won’t head to India then Braz?
And is Max Sorenson any relation to Louk? (or however he spells it?)
It’s the new Bangladesh Premier League that he got a contract for, worth €60K. It’s a tricky situation, because Ireland are touring Kenya at the same time that it is on. The tour consists of a four-day Intercontinental Cup game, two World Cup qualifiers and three T20 games. The World Cup qualifiers are mandatory under ICC player release rules, so I’d say he’ll probably have to go to Kenya for them. I assume BPL will work the same as IPL, and he will lose the money pro-rata for any games he is unavailable for. They are announcing the squad next week, and have said that they are discussing it with him. It’s a tough one, because they won’t want to deny him a very significant payday but it wouldn’t be a great precedent for him to miss Ireland games for it.
No mention of other sporting organisations on the island that are slyly trying to gain leverage off our green ODI jerseys.
:lol: Deutrom comes across as a very effective operator to be fair to him.
Once you get past the poshness in his voice there’s a lot of substance to what he says.
Cricket Ireland seem to be a very dynamic organisation who actually produce results. Fair fucking play to them. Its an ambitious plan to be a test nation by 2020, but if you have nothing to work towards, whats the point? The initiatives listed all look eminently feasible.
From The Guardian:
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Martin McGuinness isn’t the first person you associate with cricket. But one night in the late 60s, a teenage McGuinness was up late watching television – and on came a cricket highlights package. “I thought it was really interesting,” he recalls, though he can’t remember who was playing. “It was a game where discipline was required. An intriguing battle between bowler and batsman. I became very interested in the different techniques and strategies that were deployed around it.”[/font]
[font=verdana]It’s an unexpected romance. Cricket and sometime members of the IRA don’t traditionally mix. For many years in Northern Ireland, cricket was more popular with Protestants, Gaelic football with Catholics. In 1972, Belfast’s Cliftonville cricket ground was even set on fire during a spate of sectarian violence.[/font]
[font=verdana]So it was a slight turn-up to learn that McGuinness – a Sinn Fein politician and now Northern Ireland’s deputy first minister – is a cricket nut. “Incredibly for a hardline Irish republican he was also a big fan of the English cricket team,” revealed Peter Hain, the former Northern Ireland secretary, in his memoirs this week. “England’s victory over Australia in the Ashes series in 2005 especially enthralled him.”[/font]
[font=verdana]When I speak to McGuinness, on the phone from Belfast, his interest seems unlikelier still. “None of my friends were into it,” he says. “The part of Derry where I lived, on the west bank of the Foyle, there wasn’t any cricket whatsoever.” His brothers were both high-level Gaelic footballers, and so his only cricketing outlet came from late-night television highlights. “The closest I got to playing cricket was what was called rounders. There was a very large field at the top of our street and we used to play there.”[/font]
[font=verdana]McGuinness recites with pride the day the lowly Irish team toppled the West Indies, then a good Test side. “Thanks to Dougie Goodwin and Alec O’Riordan, Ireland bowled them out for just 25 in July 1969. That was a much talked-about match at that time.”[/font]
[font=verdana]His Catholic friends didn’t think his interest was bizarre. “They were just surprised,” he says. “But over the years I’ve learned that other Irish republicans have a great interest in all sorts of sports, including cricket. Raymond McCartney, a former hunger-striker, is also a fan of cricket.”[/font]
[font=verdana]Hain writes that McGuinness was “able to recite match statistics and comment expertly”, but I sense McGuinness’s knowledge is now less detailed than it was. He says he has a soft spot for Pakistan, India and – after he went there on a peacekeeping mission – Sri Lanka. “But,” he admits, “I wouldn’t claim to be familiar with most of their players.” Nevertheless, he is “very anxiously” awaiting Indian batsman Sachin Tendulkar’s long-overdue 100th international century, and also speaks fondly of Australian batsman Ricky Ponting, who hits a massive 221 on the day we speak. “A lot of people thought his career had come to an end, so this is great to see.”[/font]
[font=verdana]McGuinness is most animated when talking about Irish cricket. “The current crop of Irish players has been doing a fantastic job for all of us,” he says. “Kevin O’Brien [whose heroics helped Ireland beat England last year] is obviously a national hero.” McGuinness happily remembers another famous day for Irish cricket: the shock win over Pakistan at the 2007 world cup. On their return, the team gave him one of the ties they wore at the tournament – “now a much favoured tie of mine”. And today he’s excited because Cricket Ireland (Irish cricket’s governing body) has just announced plans to bring Test cricket to Ireland, which he hopes will both stop Ireland’s best cricketers from emigrating to England, and increase participation at lower levels.[/font]
[font=verdana]I ask if it will help rid Irish cricket of any remaining sectarian associations, but McGuinness rejects the terms of the question. “People say it’s mostly Protestants who take an interest in cricket. But I don’t think that’s the case. All over the north, we have people from the Catholic tradition who also play. And I have to say I’m very proud of that.”
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Ah thats just tremendous altogether. As if there weren’t enough things to like about Martin already, he loves Test Match cricket as well. Manuel is going to be delighted by this.
Martin is a gent!
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RTÉ Sport will broadcast coverage of Ireland’s cricket team as they look to qualify for the ICC World Twenty20 this week.[/font]
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Highlights of all six matches from the crunch period of the qualifiers will be broadcast each night on RTÉ Two from tomorrow, Thursday 22 March.[/font]
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RTÉ Two television will broadcast highlights each night for the next three days beginning with Ireland v Canada. The winners of this game will go on to play the winners of Scotland v the Netherlands on Friday, with the final matches taking place on Saturday.[/font]
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Over the next three days, Ireland will be attempting to get back to a fifth ICC World Event since their debut World Cup in the Caribbean in 2007.[/font]
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Having finished second in the preliminary group that finished yesterday, Ireland are now in a straight knockout situation where they must win three games back-to-back in three days to qualify for one of the two spots available for the ICC World Twenty20 in Sri Lanka this September.[/font]
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Ryle Nugent, group head of RTÉ Sport, said: “We are delighted to join the country in getting behind the Irish cricket team and supporting them as they look to qualify for the Twenty20 World Cup. With the matches starting from 6am Irish time, RTÉ will give Irish audiences the chance to catch up and enjoy highlights each night.”[/font]
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ICC World Twenty20 qualifier: Highlights - Ireland v Canada – Thursday 22 March at 11.30pm.[/font]
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ICC World Twenty20 qualifier: Highlights - Ireland/Canada v Scotland/Netherlands – Friday 23 March at 11.45pm[/font]
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ICC World Twenty20 qualifier: Saturday 24 March at 11.35pm. RTÉ Sport will also feature updates and news on the Irish cricket team’s progress on Morning Ireland on RTÉ Radio 1 and across the day on RTÉ.ie[/font]
These games are live on Setanta too, as far as I know. Not sure what time of the day they’re on though.
Ah fair play to RTE.
They seem to have played themselves into a bit of form now having started the tournament poorly. Had the easier group, but fucked up by losing to Namibia. Have to do it the hard way now. Will have to beat Canada and then probably Holland and Namibia to qualify. Questions will be asked about the decision to omit Niall O’Brien if we don’t go through.