How can Ireland do it again?
Victory adds a much-needed feel-good factor, but how can wins like this become more common?
The post-victory press conference was delayed because Irish coach Lloyd Tennant wanted to be with his players as they sang the team song.
Ireland have a team song? They haven’t won much in the last fortnight so this was the first we’ve heard of it during this World Cup.
Or any World Cup, for that matter. Saturday’s six-wicket victory over the West Indies represented the country’s first win at a women’s T20 World Cup in 21 attempts.
While waiting for Tennant in Gloucestershire’s indoor school at Bristol, noise filtered down from the changing rooms above. Ireland’s Call belted out. Anthems tend to be the sign of team without a changing room song. Sure everyone knows Ireland’s Call, that’ll do. With any luck, they’ll have more victories to trial belting alternatives.
24 hours after the men beat India for the first time, the women secured their own piece of history. Unfiltered joy, mixed in with relief continues to filter through Irish cricket. The energy engulfing the public conversation is infectious. This is what it’s supposed to feel like.
In many ways, winning one game in this World Cup was the ideal result for Ireland. In close proximity to the men as well. It creates a narrative, a weekend to remember that will be added to the heady days of 2007 and 2011.
People can’t help but notice. Cricinfo is covering Irish cricket properly again. Journalists in England have been sufficiently distracted from the Test match to spread the good news. Even a handful of non-cricketing Irish media folk have done their bit to fan the flame.
Securing one win avoided the doomsday narrative that would build until the next T20 World Cup. The monkey would have outgrown the back.
On the flip side, multiple wins risked papering over cracks. This is a team with talent but the current system is not setting them up to consistently win at this level. Generally speaking, this squad keep cards rooted to chest when speaking publicly. Even still, the frustration prior to Saturday filtered through the veneer at times. After the Sri Lanka defeat, Orla Pendergast’s press conference bordered on pure exasperation.
While those emotions disappear with one beautiful win, the catalyst behind them remains important. Changes are needed to Ireland’s domestic system to ensure Saturday’s first is followed by a second sooner rather than later. By going through four games of disappointment, Cricket Ireland’s head honchos have the excuse they need to make meaningful changes. One win to keep everyone happy, but not so many that it convinces us that everything is fine.
Some measures are already coming. The press have been teased with an announcement on Tuesday regarding the women’s high performance structure. “Certainly a development team will be coming at some point,” said Tennant during his post-tournament debrief. “We’ve got a number of girls who are going to be pushing into the squad so they need quality cricket. The U19s are going to a World Cup and they’ll need quality cricket.
“We have to be quite inventive with the cricket we’ve got. When we get opportunities to get out of the nets and even play the Irish lads U16s, U17s, those sort of things are a chance to get out and practice the way we want to play.”
More cricket across the pathway is a good thing. We’ll see how significant the other changes are. Something needs to be done to the Super Series. It remains an ineffective tool for preparing the senior international group. What about getting a Dutch team involved?
Begging the ECB to get an Ireland A team into the county set-up, with the best players playing for actual counties as Orla Prendergast and Gaby Lewis have done, should be priority number one. Given CI’s behind-close-doors lamenting of English cricket’s lack of willingness to help, this seems unlikely.
Then look at the winter, sending the best 10 players to South Africa, New Zealand or, if it can be afforded, Australia. Even if it’s just in high end club cricket. After this World Cup, Prendergast at least should have a full winter dance card of franchise opportunities.
It seems unlikely anything this drastic will come just yet. There is talk of splitting the squad into a senior group of roughly 16 players with a junior squad below. That might increase the quality of training, but who will these groups play against?
To an extent, these are conversations for a different day. But they also aren’t. Tennant was quick to point out the age profile of this side, but structures still take time to bed in. If Prendergast, Lewis and Hunter are yet to hit their peak, let’s do something now to ensure they have a better team around them when they get there. After a poor display against Scotland, Ireland certainly improved as the tournament went on. Something which only further proves the point that current preparation is not adequate.
“We’re so young, our average age is 23 I think,” said Tennant. “We are growing at the pace we’d like to but everyone would like to grow a bit quicker. With the age of the squad, we’ve got to have some patience.
“For me, this group that we’ve got is U23. If you’re at your best when your average age is 26, we’ve got a three-year growth period.
“We’ve got a decent batting line-up and a decent bowling line-up but there are certain things we’ve got to do. Hitting the right areas when we bowl, that is the same all the way through. Some days we’ve done it, some days we haven’t. We executed perfectly, almost, today.
“With the batting, we’ve tried different batting line-ups to be stronger through the middle and some days that’s come off, some days it hasn’t.
“The other thing that people have criticised this side for, our fielding in the past has not been great, but we’ve been a unit out in the middle and we’ve been much better.”
To Lloyd’s point, the seven catches taken on Friday represent Ireland’s best in T20Is.
This was a frustrating yet instructive fortnight that ultimately ended in joy. Prior to Bristol, the disappointment certainly filtered through the camp. Difficult conversations are no bad thing. In the fullness of time, there will be ones about this World Cup. Why did senior leaders not see eye-to-eye about who to call up in place of the injured Ava Canning? Why did it take a year to replace Ed Joyce with a specialist batting coach in Dominic Ostler? With former bowling coach Glenn Querl moving away from the senior set-up to work in the pathways, was this a reflection of a coaching group that did not gel?
The players deserved Saturday. For all the closeness of the group, endless toil without reward is no good for the soul. They should celebrate accordingly.
When they get back to work, though, the same cycle cannot repeat itself. The current system of Super Series and sporadic Women’s Championship tours has not improved performances at an adequate pace.
Some changes are coming, but more will be required. Turn Saturday’s win into a watershed moment to go with the memories. This will ensure more are created.