Mailbag 2.0 - any fixtures, lads?
Why no Test match? Tucker's form a source of concern? Why no ODI youngsters?
Bit quiet in Irish cricket circles, isn’t it?
Recency bias could well be at play here, but with two stories breaking in a space of a week suggesting that Ireland have been cutting back on home fixtures due to financial pressure, it’s difficult to remember the fan base being as riled up as it currently is. Couple that with a mixed bag of a series against Afghanistan - featuring a Test win, an ODI blowout and ultimately being outclassed in the T20Is in a World Cup year - there’s a lot of negativity blowing about the place.
Which means everyone has opinions, plenty of them strong. It’s time to talk about these in the latest mailbag. Thank you all for sending in your questions, opinions and even rhetorical statements. As always, I have not included potentially libellous questions…
Any likely change between this XI and the starting XI in the World Cup? - Barry O’Keefe
I don’t think so. Though if selectors are going to punish any losses in form, now is the time to do it to give the next man up a run of games to bed in, between the three home T20s vs Pakistan and then the tri-series with Scotland and the Netherlands. They might rotate Craig Young in if they opt to go with only one spinner, but apart from that I can’t see much changing, barring injury.
Does Malan already know his 15 for the World Cup? is there anything anyone outside the squad can do to change his mind? - Richard
I don’t think anyone outside the current squad will be given the opportunity at international level to change his mind. Interpro form - if there even are any T20 festivals before the World Cup - is taken with a pinch of salt, given the gulf in standard. I’d be shocked if, injury apart, the 15 that went to the UAE won’t be the same as what we see in New York. Maybe Fionn Hand comes in for Graham Hume. That back-up seamer spot is the only place I could see a change.
(On ODIs) With the next major tournament several years away, thoughts on the lack of youth being blooded? How sustainable is putting all our eggs in one basket hoping several of these players won’t have a massive drop off by ages 35-37? (Arguably already begun for the openers) - Vayn Holden
This isn't so much a question as a rhetorical statement, but with years to go before any ODIs of consequence is it concerning that Cricket Ireland seem so reluctant to blood any young players, I don't seem what we gain from the current ODI selections other than future problems. - Pirate Badshah
Two questions of a similar ilk so I grouped them together. The short answer is a lack of depth is very dangerous, especially atop the order where Paul Stirling and Andrew Balbirnie will be the wrong side of 35 by the time of the next ODI World Cup.
Elsewhere, Andy McBrine will be 34 but will probably keep playing until he’s 80. The bigger concern would be if Ireland don’t find a more dangerous wicket-taking off-spinner by then. George Dockrell will be 35 but, by all accounts, is good at looking after himself physically so is probably the player most likely to be able extend his career. Barry McCarthy would be touching 35 by the time of the next ODI World Cup.
Craig Young would also be a concern, given his injury record. It’s not that long ago he had a hip issue that was described as “chronic” in a Cricket Ireland press release.
The rest of the current starting ODI XI are all fine in terms of age profile, but we have just listed a good few ifs, buts and maybes about more than half the side (6 out of 11). Ireland produce a lot of middle order batters, so if something happens to Dockrell, there should be someone who can stand up. Neil Rock perhaps, if he keeps continuing on his power-hitting trajectory. Maybe Morgan Topping adds some power and comes good.
On the fast-bowling front, while there are a handful of young options knocking around the squad - Matthew Foster likely the most promising - we have no idea what their capabilities are due to a lack of Wolves cricket.
The place where Ireland would be well and truly screwed if anything happens is atop the order. There are pretty much no current young options who look like they could be ready to open the batting at a World Cup in three-and-a-half years time. Stephen Doheny had a decent run at opening last year, but was dropped for a technical flaw and hasn’t played for the senior side since. He’s probably the closest opener to being international-ready, given he has a handful of caps.
Further down the list, it appears that James McCollum is a red ball only player. Ross Adair hasn’t come close to ODI recognition yet, while PJ Moor has been told he is seen as a middle order option in white ball, despite the logjam in that area and the fact that until last year he opened for Munster.
Of the younger top order options, Tim Tector and Adam Rosslee, the YMCA duo, are highly regarded by quite a few. Tector is a more natural middle-order player who looked at all the players in the middle of the Irish line-up - his older brother, Campher, Tucker, Dockrell - and decided his chances at opening were better. He struggled on the recent development tour to the Caribbean and wasn’t picked for the Wolves trip to Nepal.
Rosslee had a stellar year with the bat at club level but fell out of favour at the Lightning pretty quickly after a few low scores. He got injured on that Caribbean tour and also didn’t make the cut for Nepal. Ali Frost at Munster scored a few interpro runs this season, but again, is he banging the door down?
Because no one is making a watertight case for selection across the board, not just top order options, the selectors obviously feel there is nothing to be gained by throwing someone into the deep end and seeing if they sink or swim. If anyone was making a good case, they would probably need two years to play consistently in the senior side to bed in. That leaves a handful of Wolves tours between now and 2025 to make a strong case, get into the team and stay there for a few years before the next World Cup. It’s not impossible, but not likely.
In 2020, the infamous Covid series away to England, under head coach Graham Ford, Ireland did, to an extent, say ‘Fuck it’ and threw the kids at their holes in the line-up three years out from an ODI World Cup. Garry Wilson and Boyd Rankin didn’t retire until 2021, but they didn’t feature in that series. Niall O’Brien had called it a day in 2018. William Porterfield, though he didn’t stop playing until 2022, also didn’t play in that series.
Ireland had plenty of holes to fill and gave Gareth Delany, Curtis Campher, Harry Tector, Lorcan Tucker and Josh Little extended playing time. For the most part, those players learned how to survive - and eventually thrive - in international cricket.
I previously wrote that another England series, this time last September, was a good opportunity to do the same. The difference is, back then, those young players had at least some level of Wolves cricket. They had been ground into the dirt in places like Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, a process that somewhat softened the blow of landing on your arse against a World Cup-winning side.
Ireland have gone an extended period without that luxury. If there are young players who they think do have the raw materials to be good internationals, they can't really force them to learn on the hop to that extent.
Yes, current ODI selection policy is kicking the can down the road. But with the lack of an ODI Super League, World Cup qualification is based on world rankings so every game matters. Ireland need to balance winning games with developing two or three players who could contribute in 2027. They’re not doing either at the moment.
I can see why on the latter. There really isn’t anyone who has shown they could do what the current core did back in 2020. It’s not fair to expect them to, given the lack of Wolves game time.
The one position I would advocate for throwing someone into the mix? A spinner. Dockrell aside, Ireland’s spinners just aren’t taking any ODI wickets at the moment. The seamers, and to a lesser extent the openers, are at least offering something. There probably is nothing to be lost from throwing one of the young contracted spinners - Humphreys, Hoey or even White - into the mix and seeing what happens.
Most core players in the team got selected on potential at first, and was given a long rope to improve and prove themselves. Can we assume that the unwillingness to give any new players opportunities means that the coaching staff simply don't rate any talent outside of the XI? - Nicholas Fewster
They don’t rate the talent outside of the squad right now. If someone goes on the upcoming Wolves tour to Nepal and averages 50 or takes 10 wickets in three games, that might change. But given the reluctance to make significant changes to the senior squads more generally, it would take that and then some to get a call-up.
It’s not the fault of the current youngsters that they’re not rated, they haven’t had the same Wolves opportunities as Tector, Tucker and co had back in the day. That doesn’t change the fact that, as things stand, they are not rated highly enough to come in and make an immediate impact.
1. Tector should be bat at 3
2. Why does Delany get underbowled?
3. Can McCarthy bowl at the death? - Barry O’Keefe
Agreed. This is where I do the horrendously pompous thing of saying I was calling for Tector to bat at 3 in T20 long before it was made cool by Andrew Leonard on commentary (thanks for the shoutout, Lenny). I’ve always been a proponent of giving your best player as many balls to face as possible. I also think Tector’s career strike-rate against spin is too low to bat at four, so he should move up to start against pace in the powerplay. Although, given recent form, he may as well be batting at 3 given how early he’s been coming in.
White has been a much better T20 bowler than Delany since the last World Cup. I wrote about it recently, but in sum, after his four-fer vs Afghanistan, White had played 12 matches since the 2022 World Cup and taken 19 wickets at an average of 15.21. His career average is 20.50 so that number has come down over a significant sample size. An economy of 7.22 is also passable. Contrast this to Gareth Delany, Ireland’s premier spinner at that World Cup, who has taken just five wickets at an average of 38.2 since that tournament. Based on those numbers, White absolutely should be given more overs. Delany showed in that World Cup he can be effective with very clear plans and conditions in his favour (bowling wide to the massive square boundaries vs the Windies, for example) but White has better numbers since then.
Whether McCarthy can bowl at the death or not, he will. Ireland like to give Little a third over before over number 15 in an effort to buy a wicket. So, in the last four overs, that mostly leaves two from Adair, one from McCarthy and one from Little. McCarthy has a decent off-cutter, but his economy at the death in T20Is has gotten worse in recent years. In 2021, he conceded 10.6 runs an over (you’d take anything around 10 at that stage of the game). In 2022, a World Cup year, it rose to 11.6. In 2023, it was 13.9 albeit that was a small sample size. In three games this year, it’s better at 10.4, but we’ll see where that figure is by the time we come to the World Cup.
According to Cricinfo, in his T20I career, McCarthy has bowled 254 balls at the death. His economy at that stage is 12.09, batters are striking at 185 and he’s averaging a wicket every 28.4 runs. For comparison, Josh Little concedes fewer runs at the death (9 runs an over) and takes wickets more often (average of 17). Mark Adair’s economy at that stage is 9.7 and he takes a wicket every 18.5 runs. Of Ireland’s three T20 seamers, McCarthy has the worst record at the death.
Well beaten today. Series was lost not beating them after getting them 14-4 yesterday. Whose place in the side is under the most pressure? Is anyone’s? - Conor Hayes
Probably Lorcan Tucker? As I’ll answer below, though, I think it’s unlikely he’ll be dropped. After that, maybe Gareth Delany when they play on pitches that don’t call for two leggies, but the way he balances the side and elongates the batting line-up is so valuable. See his cameo in the second T20, 39 off 18 balls (211 strike-rate) to keep things close.
Since the end of the 2022 World Cup Lorcan Tucker has scored 193 runs at less than 15. Take away the 94 he scored against an amateur Austrian side and it's 99 runs at 7.61/83.19 (strike-rate). His approach is not working and he must either be coached to change or be dropped. - Gearoid
It’s not pretty reading, is it.
When under pressure, Tucker looks to be aggressive. It’s not a bad ploy per se. Arguably the best innings of his career, a World Cup half-century against Australia, wouldn’t have happened if he didn’t try to hit Ireland out of a hole after a top-order collapse.
However, if it goes wrong, it is a strategy that can look very ugly. In the recent series-decider, the third T20 vs Afghanistan, his golden duck looked awful. He walked down the track on his first ball to Naveen-ul-Haq, tried to swipe through mid-wicket and was completely cleaned up.
I didn’t hate the first part of the strategy. Naveen and his opening partner, Fazalhaq Farooqi, had the ball hooping around corners back in to the right-handers. The ball previous to bowl Andrew Balbirnie was probably one of the best deliveries the ex-skipper has ever faced. Using your feet, coming down the track to meet the ball, gives it less time to swing and do damage. It’s ballsy, but there is method in the madness.
What wasn’t ideal was the shot, the angle of Tucker’s bat. It ended up being an ugly swipe across the line, the bottom hand taking over. He got nowhere near the ball and was duly bowled.
Right footwork, wrong shot. He payed a heavy, heavy price. The ball could easily have swung past leg stump, or bounced over the top. Sometimes as a batter in poor form, you just need a lucky break like that and you click into gear. Tucker isn’t getting any of those at the moment.
It’s clear Tucker is very conscious of his form given all three of his dismissals in this series came from pre-meditation. In the other two games, he got out sweeping. Tucker might be an exception because he loves playing the sweep so much - he once said in an interview to me “I sweep everything” - but generally, for 99% of players, the decision to sweep is made before the bowler releases the ball. That said, for a shot he claims to love so much, he does get out playing it a lot. I did a podcast with Jarrod Kimber last year where he gave a detailed breakdown of just how often it does cost him his wicket.
The decision to come down the track was premeditated. Think back to one of his dismissals vs India last year, an attempted ramp shot off Jasprit Bumrah looping up to the ‘keeper - also premeditated. Tucker is trying to force the issue, deciding to be aggressive in response to a lack of form. In a way, it’s admirable. Stick to what brought success during that ridiculous year from the end of 2021 to the end of 2022.
But if we loved all those runs that year when those shots were coming off - remember how good the ramp was in Australia? - then we have to accept that the laws of statistical variance dictate there will be plenty of times they don’t work. Tucker is unlucky that such variance has been working against him to this extent. Just like that run nearly 18 months ago was unsustainable, he can’t be this bad forever.
Interestingly, in a recent interview on this site, Tucker did talk about batting a little more within himself. That said, it was largely in the context of batting outside the powerplay, where Ireland want to be a bit more circumspect, particularly against spin. In the powerplay, he still wants to be aggressive, and that is where he has been getting out recently.
The question skirts around a more sinister one: is this pretty large sample size of form a suggestion that he actually isn’t good enough to bat at 3 against good opposition, and that the magic year was just that, a flash in the pan not to be repeated? We need to see a lot more games before we can come to that conclusion. I suspect not, depositing Hazelwood into the top tier of the Gabba doesn’t come down to dumb luck.
Will they drop him? Unlikely. Dropping the vice-captain is a massive call. I spoke to a player before they headed out to the UAE. We were talking about how to get Neil Rock in the team - an idea of mine with which this player agreed. One suggestion was a like-for-like swap of ‘keepers with Tucker. The player’s response was: “can’t, he’s vice-skip.” It could potentially be a disruption to the changing room if the second in command was straight out dropped.
But if they are contemplating a move, now is the time to do it. There are - I think - seven games between now and the World Cup. If moving someone up to 3 and Tucker back down the order, you need to give everyone time to bed into their new roles. Likewise, if they bring in a new face like Rock, you can’t do it on the eve of a World Cup-opening game against India and simply say, “good luck.” We saw how out of sorts Rock looked against Rashid Khan having not played an international game since August.
If they don’t make a change before the Pakistan series, they’re living by the sword of keeping Tucker at 3 and hoping he bursts out of his slump.
Any recourse for such bad home umpiring decisions, its a bit of a trend with some countries. - Joe Carty
Umpires on the ICC elite panel certainly do plenty of performance reviews in a bid for self-improvement, similar to players. Semi-professional umpires employed by slightly less cash-rich national boards may be another matter.
I have no idea of the inner-workings of the Afghanistan Cricket Board’s umpire training, given they are not public. I have zero sources in a Taliban-controlled organisation.
If you're still taking questions, in light of another rumoured cancelled match today, do Irish Cricket journalists have any more of a clue what the fuck is going on at CI than us onlookers on the outside? It seems an absolute shambles despite (supposedly) record funding levels - Nicholas Fewster
This is where the fun begins.
In case you missed it, I reported last week that the home series against Australia planned for this summer has been postponed. The visit of South Africa has been moved to the UAE while, quelle surprise, there will be no Euro Slam this year.
This was compounded by a Cricket Europe report on Thursday that the home Test against Zimbabwe, set for Stormont at the back end of July, is now on the chopping block for financial reasons.
Cricket Ireland will be supposedly be getting in the region of $12-15 million from the ICC this year. That’s up from roughly $4 million per annum in recent years. They are also in receipt of at least €333,000 from the Irish government. They get a contribution from Sport NI as well. More cash should not equal less fixtures. People are rightly asking questions.
As of now, there are no public answers. Cricket Ireland won’t speak until after a board meeting on Tuesday.
Any information filtering through back channels at this stage is incomplete, but it does shed a little bit of light.
There was an ICC meeting last week, at which Cricket Ireland were confident of convincing the governing body of giving them access to an extra pot of cash. A source said that the meeting went “shit.” Alarm bells started ringing because budgets were drawn up, including money allocated to fixtures, under the assumption that the cash would be there.
So now there is a large hole in the budget. Bear in mind, even if CI was given this cash, hosting Australia this year was already beyond them.
Faced with this problem, the promised fixture announcement date of March 15th was pushed back. Something in the plans needs to give in order to make up the financial deficit. Ditching the Test is one idea. There are, apparently, other options under consideration, but it is difficult to see what CI is spending as big a sum of money on that could also make up the difference. Someone mentioned maybe the women’s series against England. Canning women’s sport would be poisonous PR, probably even more so than ditching a men’s Test.
These options, the only one we know being the cancellation of the Test, are being presented to the board on Tuesday. A final decision will be made then.
While the circumstances are not ideal, and sources do suggest it is a case of having the financial rug pulled from underneath CI by the ICC, there are still many remaining questions.
Even without this extra pot of desired cash, Ireland’s ICC funding has close to tripled this year. What is that being spent on? The information vacuum needs to be filled.
Why are Cricket Ireland drawing up a budget that can be so dramatically reduced off the back of one disappointing meeting? Is this prudent financial planning?
If Cricket Ireland is now - finally, they say - being funded by the ICC as a full member should, yet they still cannot afford to host Test cricket, what is the benefit of full membership? What is the point of being a cricketing nation that cannot afford to fulfil a full schedule on its own shores? Why has Cricket Ireland agreed to FTP commitments they cannot uphold? What does the ICC think, giving Ireland more money only for its own draft schedule to be put to one side?
How long will it take, on better ICC funding, for the practice of cancelling or moving fixtures abroad to cease?
Scotland, an associate member, has moved on from the Euro Slam and set up their own T10 competition with a host of big names already signed up. Plus, it looks like they’ll host Australia this year instead of Ireland. If an associate member can do this, but a full member cannot, what does this say about Cricket Ireland’s administrators? Are their positions tenable? Should we all just pack up and go home?
I’m sure there are answers to these questions and that Cricket Ireland would defend themselves. Plenty are waiting for them to do so.
When was the last time that CI’s finances were made public? Do the various club Presidents get to see them? Can we look at them? Was it a good idea to add 3 marketing experts to the CI Board last year when a finance expert was needed?? - Larry the Leprechaun
There’s a lot in this. I’ll deal with the board question first. Last year, Cricket Ireland announced four new board members. Former captain William Porterfield was one. Two others, Martina McDonnell and Mari O’Leary, are independent directors who work in marketing. At the time of joining the board, McDonnell was marketing director at Meta (Facebook) while O’Leary was the managing director of O’Leary PR & Marketing.
The fourth new board member was Siobhan McBennett, Cricket Leinster’s nominee as their president. Her bio on the website says nothing about marketing.
All of which is to say, given what is leaking out about financial holes leading to fixture cancellations/postponements, does CI need more financial expertise? The short answer is, I don’t know how much of a sway board members have on the company’s financial decisions. Many are independent directors without much of a background in cricket. As far as I gather, while they do have some input, in the main, the decisions on where money are spent are taken by CI’s senior staff. The board offers final sign off at their meetings, so they have a role in the process, but it remains unclear to what extent. Cricket Ireland has a chief financial officer, Andrew May.
In terms of finances being made public, as a company in receipt of taxpayer money, Cricket Ireland releases a financial report every year. There is a relatively detailed breakdown of income, expenditure, where this comes from and on what it is spent, as well assets and liabilities. My leaving cert accounting means I can just about make sense of it all.
The reports are released a year after the fact, meaning we’re still waiting to see the 2023 finances. We won’t be able to delve into the books and see where the holes are for 2024 for another 12 months.
If interested, there is a lot of information for you to delve through. If you click here, you can find all the most recent reports.
There’s a lot in it, so good luck, but some of the more interesting figures are as follows: in 2022, Cricket Ireland ran at a loss of €176,184. This was down from a loss of €1,230,869 in 2021. In 2022, the total wage bill for the organisation, including playing and non-playing staff, was close to €4.8 million. The ICC income that year was €5.4 million. That wage bill has steadily gone up and up as more contracts get handed out; it was roughly €3.6 million in 2018.
In 2020, the year of the pandemic, the company made a surplus of approximately €1.5 million. That year, grants increased from €775,000 to €2.13 million. Cricket Ireland received close to €1.8 million in Sport Ireland Covid support grants. Due to a lack of home internationals during that 2020 summer, the cost of hosting matches plummeted from close to €2.5 million in 2019 to less than €9,000 a year later.
In 2019, Cricket Ireland have an income source listed as “ET20 Slam” worth nearly €1.1 million.
Like I said, though, there is a lot more in there and it is definitely worth perusing if interested.
Any word on how the players are taking it? Big series like the Aussie one are shop windows for their careers in getting County/franchise contracts. Can't imagine they're too happy. - Gearoid
Understandably, fewer games is not good for players but, like all of us, they’ve been burned before. Professional athletes are very good at ignoring negatives and focusing on the next task at hand. They know that at the bare minimum they’re playing against India in a packed out New York stadium at the World Cup, which is pretty cool. But after the euphoria of getting a first Test win in front of a man and his dog in Abu Dhabi, they were looking forward to trying to double their tally at home in Belfast.
Realistically, the World Cup is what will have the biggest effect on their franchise earning potential. Too many franchises pay zero attention to bilateral cricket. But fewer matches does mean that players miss out on potential match fees, which is frustrating for them.
I have heard some rumblings about players considering packing up to go play county 2nd XI, foregoing international availability so they can get some regular, decent standard cricket. At this stage, I would question how concrete any of those plans are.
That said, this most recent postponement, if it is confirmed, raises contractual questions. The likes of PJ Moor and James McCollum are more or less contracted just to play Test matches - even if they are currently away with the Wolves. What is the point of having red ball specialists if you get rid of the few Test matches available to you on the FTP?
Abbotstown update? I’m sick of hearing about how pop up stands are expensive - Damian
An update on this effing cricket ground on Abbotstown - David Price
Again, two questions for the price of one. Before Christmas, sources were hopeful of applying for planning permission in March, which is now. At that stage, they were already talking about paring back aspects of the original designs to cut costs.
Having spoken to people on the Sport Ireland side, the owners of the Abbotstown complex, it sounds like cricket has to wait its turn. A cycling velodrome is currently up for tender in the Sport Ireland mega facility. They won’t tender two major infrastructure projects at the same time.
Cricket could be up next, but it’s not certain when that will be. Probably not in March, though, as was hoped by Cricket Ireland a couple of months ago.
What hair products do you use? - Fionn Hand Appreciation Society
No comment.