The fight for Irish cricket's soul

Cricket Ireland grows as a company while outside funding increases. Yet more cricket is not being played. What is going on?

This article first appeared here on Substack and is reproduced by kind permission of the author. You can follow Nathan Johns on Twitter @nathanrjohns 

A scene from the TV series Yes Minister has recently been doing the rounds (given the show was from well before my time, I am indebted to a media colleague for the reference).

The minster is being given a tour of an impressive hospital. Everyone tells him just how well run it is, how the excellent administration staff justify the significant cost.

There is just one problem.

“There are no patients?” asks the minster, incredulously.

“No, but the essential work of the hospital still has to go on,” replies an aide.

“Aren’t patients the essential work of the hospital?”

“Running an organisation of 500 people is a big job, minister. Without those people the hospital wouldn’t function.”

“Oh and you think it’s functioning now?”

“Minister, it’s one of the best-run hospitals in the country. It’s up for The Florence Nightingale award!”

“What, pray, is that?'“

“It’s won by the most hygienic hospital in the area.”

Some of you have probably jumped all over the metaphor in terms of its cricket relevance.

This week, Cricket Ireland finally revealed the home international schedule for the summer. We were promised word in January, so the customary tardiness has been preserved. It’s still an improvement on last year when the full fixture list wasn’t confirmed until the end of April.

Baby steps.

2025 will see nine days of men’s international cricket on the island of Ireland. Given three of these are against England in September, the likelihood of weather allowing all nine to take place seems slim.

On the women’s side, eight days of cricket are available to home fans. That’s 17 total days in a five month span. 17 matches out of the 183 days between May and September.

All this after Cricket Ireland received a significant funding increase from the ICC at the start of 2024. There has been extensive coverage on this site of how the final figures were not as high as initially reported, but they still represented a major uptick.

In 2021, before the funding rise, there were 22 days of senior international cricket in Ireland. 2022 brought 25 days. 2023 was a dark year with just six days, though ICC events and fixtures in England at least preserved some semblance of a schedule. Last year, when the new money arrived, there was 17. 11 days of Emerging Ireland cricket last year make 2024 look busier than this summer, which has the same total number of senior internationals, only without the junior games (so far, at least; more fixtures of some kind have been promised).

As Cricket Ireland’s funding has gone up, the amount of international cricket it has hosted has gone down. Where, then, has all the money gone?

CI last year made clear they would be offering a ‘rebalanced’ budget. The new cash was going to the provincial unions, the grassroots. Community cricket has been crying neglect for years. It deserves some love.

Some of the money, though, has gone elsewhere. Cricket Ireland itself as a company has grown. Even before the new ICC cash came in.

In 2023, the money paid to CI’s key management personnel rose from just under €850,000 to close to €940,000. The number of senior staff rose from six to seven. Cricket Ireland’s accounts for 2024 are not yet public, but that total number has likely crossed the million euro mark given they doubled the leadership of the high performance department with the hiring of Graeme West. There has also been an extensive restructuring of that department, with various support staff offered new titles.

Earlier this year, CI advertised for seven new positions on its payroll. Plenty of these are to do with the community game. One job, finance director, sounds a senior corporate position.

We all remember the Tesla fiasco from last year. While CI sent out an ill-judged statement attempting to explain how they would make money from the purchase and reselling of the cars, they did ultimately return one of them. It was a sideshow, not overly important in the grand scheme of this discussion, but it did not help the nagging perception which, in the eyes of plenty, is fast becoming a reality:

As Cricket Ireland grows as a company, the amount of top level cricket it hosts diminishes. The hospital is impressive, but where are the patients?

What, then, is the point of Cricket Ireland as an entity if it does not put on a sufficient number of cricket games?

This year is particularly stark as the men don’t have any ICC qualifying events. If anything, automatic qualification for next year’s T20 World Cup has been a hindrance. Games that would have been played at a qualifier have not been replaced in the home schedule. Games hosted abroad, in England and the UAE in recent years, have also boosted the match total. While these decisions were unpopular, they at least were games.

This year, the women see ICC qualifiers doing a lot of heavy lifting. The ICC Women’s Championship also necessitates a minimum number of games, in the same way the old World Cup Super League did for the men. If you take out matches necessitated or funded by the ICC alongside recent trips to England, Ireland’s schedule borders on embarrassing. As the men are finding out this year.

One player diplomatically described their upcoming summer as “barren”. Another used the term “laughable”.

“A bit of me would love to just pack it all in,” said a current international. “I actually can’t explain how fed up I am with it all.

“What’s the main objective? Without matches nothing else works: sponsorship, participation etc.”

Players are frustrated for a number of reasons, not least the diminishing return from match fees coming their way. But they also fear for the future of a sport whose visibility is dwindling. 17 matches for a summer game is not going to create a marketable product which does anything to grow things beyond the small group of diehards.

Enjoyed the men battling the West Indies in May? You have to wait until the end of July for another international in Dublin. September if it’s a men’s match. Hooked by the women’s bid to reach a World Cup in April? You can’t watch them in person until July.

CI’s defence against this position would likely involve mentioning the European T20 Premier League, the latest attempt to get the artist formerly known as the Euro Slam off the ground. This is due to take place in July and August. That is if it happens at all, given we’ve been hearing of attempts to sort a franchise league since 2019. (There is no mention of a parallel women’s competition at this stage.)

For now, not enough individual team owners have yet been secured to announce when a player auction might take place. It’s the middle of March. Rival leagues for that time of year, such as the Hundred and Major League Cricket, have largely sorted their playing rosters.

“Until the first ball is bowled, it’s not happening as far as I’m concerned,” said one player set to be involved. CI often deals with an unfair amount of scepticism. In the case of the Slam, though, it has been earned.

Last year, CI knew they would be answering these questions. When their schedule launch eventually dropped, they attempted to pre-empt the criticism. A remarkable heading was written in bold, green letters: “SUMMER ISN’T JUST ABOUT SENIOR INTERNATIONALS”

They’ve said it countless times in both statements and interviews on this site. Funding for participation programmes has gone up. While some clubs have undergone major infrastructure projects without the financial help of CI, a club fund has nevertheless been re-instated. New staff have been hired by the provincial unions.

While an unfortunate error saw Cricket Leinster’s financial information accidentally emailed to a mass mailing list, it did show that the funding it receives from CI is not insignificant. This additional grassroots expenditure, combined with rising player salaries and inflationary costs of temporary infrastructure, is why the men’s Test against Afghanistan (not to mention the six white ball games) was cancelled.

(Also fallen by the wayside, a tri-series on the women’s FTP. A bilateral series has taken its place with little explanation.)

Yet these items in the budget don’t seem to be the source of public frustration. Instead, this is an issue of governance ideology. A former coach once told me that he didn’t believe cricket was the priority for CI. Another current employee opines that the status of senior leaders is all that matters.

So long as performance reviews (a source of public ridicule in and of themselves) are adhered to, spending on the governing body can be justified. We need a bigger high performance department because these consultants said so. We paid the experts and followed their advice.

Spend any time on the ground with pathway coaches at provincial and international level. CI doesn’t need another high performance head as much as it needs a youth fast bowling coach who isn’t away with the senior side for much of the year.

The charge against CI is that they focus on looking the part, copying what has been done elsewhere instead of having the intelligence and local knowledge to tailor solutions to Irish cricket’s unique environment. This charge is somewhat harsh, seeing as some staff members come from the club game. But the influence of English former ICC employees atop the organisation builds suspicion amongst the masses. Look at the treatment of Marc Canham of the FAI. Rightly or wrongly, Irish sport is especially inhospitable to outsiders whose decisions don’t lead to satisfactory results.

Strategic plans are announced by impressive video releases. Published annual accounts (mandated by CI’s status as a body in receipt of public money) come in slick documents featuring well-manicured headshots of those at the top of the tree. Impressive new titles are added. Pay rises (labelled by CI as aiding with the cost of living and aimed predominantly at junior staff) have been implemented. New company cars were bought for the two of the most senior men in the organisation.

This is how the world does business, according to the corporate ideology of Cricket Ireland. We shouldn’t be surprised. When CEO Warren Deutrom announced the hiring of Richard Holdsworth as high performance director in 2011, this came off the back of the latter being commissioned to write a report on the state of the Irish game. “Who better take forward the ambitious objectives outlined in the 2009 Holdsworth Report into the future of Irish domestic cricket than its author," said Deutrom at the time.

The same thing is happening now Cricket Ireland can, thanks to the new ICC money, actually implement changes recommended by consultants following the desperate 2021 men’s T20 World Cup. Welcome another expensive head of high performance. Host fewer games than the year of that very report.

It’s management consultant culture. Box ticked. Here’s the paper trail justifying it. Hire staff while saying there’s no money for more matches. Doublespeak.

We are witnessing the corporatisation of Irish cricket. This process is unpopular wherever it takes place. Look at Jim Ratcliffe and Manchester United. High performance culture. Jargon. Disillusioned fans.

CI figures have said privately that they find the pushback against their form of corporatisation frustrating (try asking Sir Jim what mass fan protests are like). People in club cricket want to keep the sport in the amateur dark ages. We are the ones to bring it into the enlightened future. There will always be a clash between those who want to focus on the sport and those who have to focus on the business.

Yet Cricket Ireland cannot in good faith say it is prioritising the playing of cricket at the top level over the company’s growth. “World class cricket to light up the summer in Ireland” was the tagline when the schedule was announced. One player described it as “waffle”. Nobody would say that 17 days of internationals cricket is a “world class” offering. Fans have little time for spin. They will simply switch off.

80 people recently travelled with Lisburn Cricket Club to a tournament in Spain. Apart from the novelty of a trip to Lord’s, when was the last time 80 people travelled to watch Ireland play? The connection between the national teams and fans is dwindling, if not non-existent outside the players’ families and friends. More people are beginning to question the whole point. Might as well just watch club cricket.

Cricket Ireland’s position is that the sport will grow. The rebalanced budget in favour of grassroots only came into effect last year. Give it time. People should have patience with the increased community expenditure. But are they happy to give the same to the current regime? This ideology, the wider desire to build the corporation, has been embedded within their offices for years now. The same CEO has been in place since 2006. What is said publicly is one thing, but do actions show that the priority is cricket or the company?

CI wants trust, but they don’t need it. This is not a democracy. The board won’t demand change. Players won’t refuse to play.

Many fear for the future of the sport. With limited facilities, a pathway still struggling after being shut off from county cricket, a grassroots system only now getting a fraction of the support it needs and a minuscule international product to sell to fans and future players, in what condition will our sport be come the 2030 World Cup, earmarked as Irish cricket’s crowning moment?

“The sport is crumbling in front of us and I guarantee you Oman and Nepal will be streets ahead of us in 10 years,” says one player. If this was merely a case of matches going by the wayside so clubs can be financed, few could complain. But it’s not. Money is being spent on a cricket organisation which doesn’t play enough cricket.

An ideological battle is being fought for Irish cricket’s soul. Only there’s just one side with any real power; the same leadership which, twice in the space of five years, has saddled Irish cricket with debt. One of those loans has been paid off. Repayment of the other adds to the financial reasons why so little cricket is being played. If this were a higher profile sport, the media outcry would be deafening. Leaders would be hauled up before government committees. CI receives taxpayer money after all.

Spreading out new cash and keeping everyone happy is an impossible task. Balance needs to be achieved but the current equilibrium doesn’t appear to satisfy anyone.

“A hospital is not a source of employment, it is a place for healing the sick,” said the Minister in the above clip. CI is trying to show that they are cricket organisers, rather than corporate employers. So long as the company grows while the international fixture list fails to satisfy, they are fighting a losing battle.

Provided they, and by extension the sport itself, haven’t already lost.