If Ireland cricket board’s chief executive officer, Warren Deutrom, is to be believed then the national side will soon be playing test matches. He has said that the Irish cricket board is planning to apply to the ICC to allow them to play test matches, which will depend on an application of the Full Membership to the ICC.
There are ten full members of the ICC, which make up the ten test playing nations; India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Zimbabwe, England, West Indies. Zimbabwe currently do not play test matches. Bangladesh was the last country to have been awarded the full membership, in 2000, but it is only recently that they have shown some kind of improvement in the performances in the longer format of the game.
Cricket In Phoenix Park - Dublin
The CEO, Deutrom has said that he will talk to the ICC and seek clarification on how the process works out and what are the necessary steps for the same. However Deutrom has also said that there is a long way to go before the dream gets realised given that there are a lot of steps that the process needs to go through. He said, “There are clearly a large number of hoops we have to jump through. In terms of challenges that are facing us, yes, there is clearly an awful lot of work we need to do just to fulfill the compliance and existing criteria.”
However, he added, that in order to get to the end of the long process, there had to be a start somewhere and that is exactly what the Irish cricket has been planning.
Ireland has had a couple of really good years at the international level. In 2007, they had defeated the Pakistanis to get to the second round of the World Cup, and then got the better of Bangladesh in the second round. They have also been the best Associate nation for some time, better than the likes of Kenya, Scotland, Canada and Holland for some time now.
However, because cricket is still not a fully professional sport in the country, and with getting sponsorships a major obstacle, there have been good quality Irish players who have left the country for greener pastures. Ed Joyce and Eoin Morgan, both of whom began their ODI careers playing for Ireland, are now a part of the English set-up and have done reasonably well. The Irish cricket board could not do much to overcome the defection.
However, the ICC needs to be careful to not rush the team into the full membership status as had been the case with Bangladesh.
(Image credit: Cricket In Phoenix Park – Dublin by infomatique, licensed under CCAttribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic)
