How Cara Murray's rise shows what is possible for Ireland
Waringstown leggie is in a career-best run of ODI form in the six months since leaving university and dedicating herself to cricket on a full-time basis
Never before has an Irish woman taken six wickets in a One Day International.
Historic firsts always come with an element of surprise. It’s hard to anticipate what has never happened before.
To say Cara Murray’s spell of 6-31 vs Zimbabwe on Tuesday, a match and series-winning effort, came out of nowhere would do a disservice to a career-best run of form. Though you could be forgiven. As purple patches go, Murray’s has been sneaky.
The Dragons leggie has a career bowling average of 30.17 runs per wicket taken in ODIs. Not horrendous, but not great either.
In the last six months, however, Murray has shaved the bones of nine runs off her average. Since the tour to the Caribbean at the start of last summer, Murray has a bowling average of 21.8. That’s much more like it, if not sneaking towards elite.
Among active players, England’s Charlie Dean has the lowest average of 17.64. Behind her is Australia’s Jess Jonassen with 19.6. Shabnim Ismail hasn’t played an ODI since 2022, but her career average is 19.95.
Granted, these are career figures over a number of years, not cherry-picked six month samples, as is the case with Murray’s impressive number. But for an Irish bowler to be tentatively entering the same conversation as these players is reflective of a wider trend.
Murray, currently 23, was one of the first players to take up a full-time contract in 2022 once these were finally offered by Cricket Ireland. She was coming to the end of a degree at Ulster University, one of a number players who combined cricket with education. Not that the combination was always balanced; she missed her graduation last summer to be with the Irish squad in St Lucia.
Of all of the newly contracted players, the Waringstown bowler arguably needed full-time professionalism the most. A leg-spinner, her craft is among the more difficult to master in cricket, given the greater challenge of controlling a ball with your wrist compared to a finger-spinner. She needed contact time with coaches and countless overs under her belt.
Travel was an issue. Given the paucity of national players based north of the border in years gone by, much of Ireland’s training took place in Dublin. Murray, based in Northern Ireland, had to absorb the financial and educational cost of travelling south. Salaries bridged that gap somewhat, but Murray was still in full-time education for a year after she signed her contract.
Now she is paid as a professional and can train like one on a full-time basis. In the six months since leaving college, she has dropped her average, and not in an insignificant sample size. The span in question has seen Ireland play 11 ODIs, Murray bowling in 10 of them.
Questions about the caliber of opposition during this run are legitimate. In two games vs Australia, Murray returned figures of 0-28 (off 3.5 overs) and 2-93. Her success has largely come instead against the West Indies, Scotland and now Zimbabwe.
To say she only gets wickets against average or bad teams misses the point. Watching Tuesday’s spell, Murray’s improvement was visible in the types of deliveries she was bowling.
Four of her dismissals were bowled, suggesting an ability to bowl stump-to-stump on a surface offering assistance against players not good enough to keep out the straight ones. Consistent control is something Murray has lacked up to this point in her career.
Then look at the stumping of Lindokule Mabhero. Murray did something we haven’t seen a whole lot of, bowling with an extra yard of pace, skidding the ball off the surface past the outside edge. The batter overbalanced, fell out of her crease and Amy Hunter whipped off the bails.
The delivery had bite, energy, zip off the pitch (watch here). That Murray spun a delivery that looked quicker than her usual efforts suggests a helpful track. Yet Murray’s shoulder strength to deliver such a quicker ball with accuracy is a testament to the training - both cricketing and S&C - she has been able to do since signing a contract and then leaving university.
Murray is not all of a sudden an elite bowler, but she is starting to look more capable of doing a job in helpful conditions against teams Ireland should be beating. They haven’t had that for a while in a leg-spinner, not since the days of Ciara Metcalfe.
Murray seems to be a lot more consistent than she was, capable of bowling at different speeds and with greater control. Six months after leaving university and 18 months after signing a contract, she’d probably take that. Any improvement at a difficult skill like leg-spin is a win.
As far as the team is concerned, there is still a long way to go. Ireland don’t play enough fixtures. A gap of over two months between this tour and the previous Scotland series is a recipe for disaster in terms of load management and injuries. Rest assured S&C and physio staff are working hard behind the scenes to protect against the gruelling physical challenge of an eight-game tour in the African summer after nearly three months of no competitive cricket.
Players aren’t really well-paid compared to other careers, either. There is still too much indoor training - for men and women. The pool of available talent able to win matches for Ireland is still too small. Are we doing enough to develop women in the north?
For all the problems, Murray’s development, still in its very early stages, shows what is possible. There was no significant fanfare over a series win away from home. The players deserved their celebratory beers, but this is now the expectation. Zimbabwe are an average side. Ireland were a moment of madness (a stumping off the final ball when needing only one to win) from winning the series 3-0 instead of 2-0.
Similarly, wins over Scotland and the Netherlands last year, while celebrated, were not revered.
Women’s cricket is slow to develop across the world. Ireland, for all its faults, can vault towards the top of the list of second tier nations pretty quickly.
If Murray can shave nine runs off her average within six months of dedicating the majority of her time to cricket, executing one of the most difficult skills the game has to offer, there is a lesson be learned and an expectation to be hammered home. In the coming years of greater professionalism, with more players coming out of education and signing full-time contracts, Ireland should develop into one of countries at the head of the chasing pack behind Australia, India and England in the women’s game.
Ireland have three solid-to-excellent batters and a good seam attack. Add in a consistent leg-spinner and such a standing in world cricket is not as far away as it seems.