Ireland savour maiden victory, but will Tests ever matter?
Lack of competitive context, absence of regular matches and shoddy leadership from administrators mean Ireland's Test future is clouded in doubt
Andrew Balbirnie flung his arms in the air well before he reached the other end. The jubilation upon completing the run that handed Ireland their first ever Test victory said it all.
It didn’t matter that the crucial single came via an inelegant leading edge from Lorcan Tucker. It didn’t matter that, at 13-3, Ireland had earlier looked like botching a routine chase. It didn’t matter that a lack of cutting edge from their spinners risked throwing away victory.
Balbirnie, Ireland’s current red ball and former limited overs captain, has been through a lot in his career. Being in the middle for that moment will surely top the list of memories whenever he decides to hang up the spikes.
Irish cricket has not responded to a victory with such joy since beating England at the MCG in 2022. That was a T20. The reaction to events in the UAE probably was not as strong given the opposition and the location didn’t capture the imagination of the general public in the same way. Yet among cricket people, this red ball moment ranks alongside Melbourne, Bangalore and Sabina Park.
“I think it’s right up there,” said Balbirnie. “There’s a lot of talk in world cricket at the moment of the relevance of Test cricket but you ask this whole group how special this is, and that’s right up there for me.
“A lot of players before us didn’t get the chance to play Test cricket. Fortunately, we’re part of that history now.
“We’ve got to play and we’ve got to win. So I think it’s a lot bigger than cricket. Hopefully, we’ll inspire some people back home to want to be Test match cricketers and hopefully we can back them up to do it.”
Quite a few of those Irish players will go the rest of their careers without experiencing a moment that special. The words of the skipper, the pictures of the celebrations, the reaction of a cricketing public starved of red ball, this truly is bigger than the game.
And yet, what does it all matter?
Savour this win, Irish fans. Savour the fact Ireland were playing a Test at all.
Ireland needed a Test win to get the monkey off their backs, as the skipper said. That was context enough to make that day in Abu Dhabi special. But now that box has been ticked, what will Tests mean going forward?
A chance for a first Test win at home this summer? That’ll get the juices flowing. A first home Test held in Belfast? An important occasion, particularly for the players from the North. A first multi-Test series next January in Zimbabwe? That could mean something.
After that? We’re struggling.
The importance of Test cricket to the majority of cricket boards and, more importantly the ICC, is negligible. India, England and Australia will always play five-Test series against each other because of the Benjamins - matches involving those countries earn significant eyeballs and hefty TV money.
A Test between Afghanistan and Ireland in the UAE couldn’t even pique the interest of a broadcaster in the UK, even with Northern Ireland’s representatives in action. This comes after Ireland played a T20 in Zimbabwe where the game wasn't available via any legal or VPN-less means in either of the two countries involved.
South Africa recently sent a second, if not third string Test side to New Zealand because their centrally contracted players could not miss their domestic T20 competition which clashed.
International cricket outside the big three, let alone Test cricket more generally, is dying. In white ball formats, World Cups at least give smaller countries a dream to cling onto, a payday at the end of the rainbow that makes unbroadcasted bilateral series worth playing.
In red ball, that competitive context simply doesn’t exist for 75 per cent of the countries that play it.
Ireland play one more Test this calendar year, the aforementioned home clash with Zimbabwe at Stormont. Next January, they go back to Harare, their second home, for two Tests, according to the ICC’s Future Tours Programme (FTP). In recent years, twice the ICC has mandated a Test between these two nations in Zimbabwe, only for the red ball portion of the tour to be scrapped. Test cricket, with all its bells and DRS whistles that need to be rung for at least four days, is expensive.
Thanks to Zimbabwe’s inability to fulfil their hosting requirement during the last tour, that Test is supposed to be added onto Ireland’s next visit. If Zimbabwe have displayed a history of failing to put on one Test, who really thinks they’ll be able to come up with three?
Later in 2025, Ireland are slated to play two further Tests, one home and one away. 2026 will see two Tests. So far, there’s only one pencilled in for 2027. That’s just nine Tests in the next three years. Lest we forget it only takes one cash-strapped board to abandon the red ball portion of a tour for that number to drop. Nine ain’t bad compared to four years of nothing post-2019, but is it enough truly get the competitive juices flowing?
Players will answer in the affirmative. Most are desperate to play red ball, having grown up watching the Ashes on Channel 4 or Sky, depending on their age. They will at least play First Class cricket again this season. Cricket Ireland inadvertently confirmed what has been reported countless times now, the return of domestic red ball, when they recently announced the creation of contracts for First Class umpires.
Alongside players, fans also want more Tests. They all are being failed by the game’s administrators.
Cricket Ireland are hopeful of lobbying the ICC into creating a second tier of the World Test Championship where themselves, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan and even teams like the West Indies can play more regularly with something on the line. A source with knowledge of discussions labelled this prospect a “pipe dream” for now. Fittingly, there is an ICC meeting next week where issues like this can be raised. Yet nothing will change until 2027 at the earliest when the next cycle of fixtures is decided.
If they could, Ireland would host Zimbabwe for multiple Tests this summer, irrespective of what the ICC schedule requires. The reality is they can barely afford to put up the required infrastructure at Stormont for just one game. They have T20 World Cup preparation games against Pakistan in Clontarf to budget for as well.
I could easily sit here and say the ICC are making a big mistake by not forcing teams outside the big three to play more Test cricket. Yet that would be disingenuous. Commercially, it is absolutely the right decision. Nostalgic types in countries such as Ireland, Zimbabwe and even the Caribbean will always shout loudly, but there aren’t enough of us.
If Ireland were to host more Tests, how many would pay in at the ground? How many would watch on TV to make it worth a broadcaster and advertiser’s while?
Even in India, the biggest and most valuable market, fewer people are engaged with their ongoing five-Test series with England than the recent World Cup.
75 per cent of full member nations can’t make hosting regular Test cricket commercially viable without additional funding from the ICC. It is not in the sport’s governing body’s interest to do so given they don’t own the TV rights, invaluable though many of them are. The ICC will not set aside funds for Test cricket in smaller countries simply because it won’t get anything out of it, beyond good PR.
A T20 franchise competition in front of empty stadiums in the UAE can secure lucrative TV deals because everyone involved in the illegal Asian betting market will watch. The value of the broadcast rights for both domestic T20 competitions and ICC tournaments - where India are always mysteriously drawn against Pakistan - have exploded. More people care about these formats, be they dodgy bookies or otherwise.
Test cricket is dying because most of the countries that play it don’t have enough people interested in watching it. Of the countries who can make the longest format financially viable, only in England and Australia is it top dog among the cricketing public.
Which leaves cricket’s governors with a decision. Do nothing and Test cricket will become meaningless in most countries. Some will continue to play it for nostalgia purposes or to keep their players happy, others will simply give up. If this happens, how many people will truly care? Not enough to drive up the value of Test TV rights.
In this dystopian future, be angry at the ICC. Be angry at national boards for failing to find creative solutions for the lack of red ball, instead of simply going to the ICC with cap in hand. Be angry at T20 for creating a cannibal of a sport that continues to consume itself at a faster and faster pace. Be angry at kids these days for not watching Test cricket.
If the ICC wants the positive PR, let alone the satisfaction of preserving the game’s oldest format, they can take action. Create a separate fund that guarantees countries like Ireland a minimum number of Tests per year. Take control of Test TV rights outside of the big three to incentivise making the game watchable in the countries that play it. Create another ICC Test competition that fosters competitive context and garners eyeballs.
Will all of this happen? No. Some of it? Maybe. Colour me cynical, but ICC tournaments and franchises have already taken over. The cat’s already out of the bag, the only question is how far will it be allowed to go?
Ireland’s first Test victory will forever be important as a standalone day of sporting history. Yet the format itself could soon be obsolete.
Remember March 1st, 2024. It will always be labelled the starting point of Irish red ball success. It could yet be the beginning of the end.