Irish cricket's search for meaning

A transatlantic sporting pilgrimage serves as a painful reminder of our sport's inability to capture the imagination

A view of the Rogers Centre in Toronto.

There’s a lot to be said for hugging strangers.

Sports journalism easily lends itself to cynicism. It takes a lot to make a hack look at a game and feel the urge to embrace a randomer.

Not that any of this stopped me on Saturday night. Those of you who listen to The Irish Cricket Podcast will be aware of the gripping baseball fandom of recent weeks, spurred by a love of the Toronto Blue Jays. In a critical blow to my short and long term financial health, base urges won out and a flight was booked to Canada for the final two games of the recent World Series.

Sports fans will be aware of the dramatics of Saturday’s game seven decider. Some of the general public may well have come across some of the antics. That’s when you know something big has happened. It was an all-timer of a sporting contest.

Prior to Toronto abandoning its relationship with fortune (we won’t talk about the late innings), Bo Bichette hit a three-run home run to, at the time, put the Jays into the ascendancy. Cue bedlam in the ballpark. ‘Limbs’ as they say in football.

The failure to convince anyone else to partake in my reckless economic planning ensured I attended the game by myself. Not for long, it transpired, Bichette reuniting a lonely traveller with the warmth of strange arms followed by the coldness of cascading beer.

None of which answers the question which still requires grappling. What in the name of god was I doing there? Why was an Irishman, living in London on a journalist’s salary, moved to drop everything for a stick and ball game - not even the one responsible for a livelihood?

The most telling answer is that this particular question was only asked internally after the fact. It didn’t require a second thought. Flights were booked. Tickets were bought. Why wouldn’t you go?

Simon Kuper’s Financial Times article does an excellent job of explaining why sports fandom is not as trivial as many think. For all the openness of today’s society, it can be a lonely place. Nobody goes to mass anymore. Spotify ensures music fans don’t listen to the same records as their friends. Offices are quieter thanks to the rise of remote working. The non-digital aspects of society which build community are dwindling. Apart from the sports stadium.

In the last 24 hours, the phone has pinged with more messages from friends expressing condolences for the Blue Jays’ World Series anguish than when my grandparents died. People are desperate to be a part of something greater than themselves. For someone in my position, who has ended up working in the two sports (rugby and cricket) which offered that community as a child, a different option is required, one which doesn’t get caught up in the day job. Enter baseball.

Mercifully, the cricketing point of this sermon is approaching. This transatlantic pilgrimage was based solely on narratives. Toronto hadn’t been in the World Series since 1993. That this was the first time they got there in my lifetime was the excuse given to my significant other to justify the trip.

The Jays were not expected to get this far. Battering the New York Yankees along the way endeared them to Canadians and the rest of America alike. There was inevitably a political angle, Canada’s team going up against the US’ current dynasty, the LA Dodgers. Ever since Donald Trump re-took the presidency, the two countries do not like each other. Trump has started a trade war and expressed an interest in annexing former friends north of the border. He railed against a TV ad shown during the series, one in which the Ontario government quoted Ronald Reagan’s critique of tariffs.

In other words, this meant something. That the city of Toronto, if not the whole of Canada, united behind the Blue Jays is a twee idea thrown out by broadcasters who don’t get paid to deal in nuance. They weren’t completely wrong, though.

If all of this sounds unfamiliar, that’s because you’ve subscribed to an Irish cricket news site. When was the last time Ireland played a meaningful game of cricket? For the women, it’s probably the unsuccessful ODI qualifiers of the spring. The men? Maybe the Zimbabwe Test in February. It’s been a while.

To focus solely on Ireland here is somewhat harsh. Cricket as a whole struggles for a legitimate narrative, one which offers it societal cut-through. Last summer’s five-Test thriller between England and India captured the UK news cycle, but who cared about the Hundred which started the next day? Australia’s departure from the women’s World Cup caused a global stir. The Ashes later this month will do similar. The IPL hype-train will build once again early next year. Watching Andrew Leonard’s social media posts about Nepalese fandom offers a refreshing reminder that the sport can thrive outside of the ‘big three’. After that…

Apart from seeing a viral clip of Kagiso Rabada on-driving Shaheen Afridi into the stands, how many of you were aware of the ongoing South Africa-Paksitan series? Unless a fan of their Irish fielding coach, who among you knows how Afghanistan have gotten on in their recent home stint in the UAE? (John Mooney, for those of you wondering). Who will take a significant interest in next year’s T20 World Cup? There will be a bandwagon if Ireland cause an upset. India’s army of fans will make their voices heard after an inevitable semi-final exit. But T20 simply doesn’t get juices flowing among the fanbases of cricket’s other superpowers.

For the myriad of reasons we frequently discuss, hosting cricket in Ireland is unaffordable. The one explanation which doesn’t get referenced enough is context. Irish cricket is expensive because it doesn’t mean anything to the fanbase. People won’t pay for it, be it through tickets, TV subscriptions or merchandise. I sit writing this in a café in Toronto’s trendy (I think - I’m a tourist so give me a break if I’m way off) Distillery District. The season is over but there are multiple Blue Jays hats sat for their Sunday coffee. There is a cynicism to corporations monetising that connection, but it’s a necessary evil. Sometimes people are happy for the man to take their money.

To be fair to CI, they’re trying to do something about it. They’ve pushed forward an idea often discussed (again) on The Irish Cricket Podcast: a European cricket tournament featuring Ireland, England (in some capacity), Scotland and the Dutch. Regular competitive games against local rivals (and England’s second string, for now) will certainly garner more attention than a meaningless bilateral series against Bangladesh in Chelmsford.

Interest levels in the offices of the England and Wales Cricket Board remain to be seen. They’ve raised questions on where such a concept fits in their calendar, while the immediate commercial viability is also a concern.

Even Test cricket, Irish cricket’s Moby Dick, is beginning to lose meaning. Fans love mentioning the three consecutive victories against Afghanistan, Zimbabwe and then Zimbabwe again, but prior to the most recent win back in February, red ball captain Andrew Balbirnie warned that contextless Test matches were losing their novelty. Given the expense, one-off Tests should be banned. They are pointless. Three-match series are a must. Even then, it really takes five games to build rivalries and create a sense of theatre, as we saw when India toured England.

A second tier of the World Test Championship can’t come soon enough for Ireland. Even then, countries such as England need to buy in properly to the structure and not moan about slow over-rates costing them a final place. It’s all well and good focusing on India and the Ashes, but what happens next summer when fewer people give a toss about New Zealand’s UK trip?

More so than most sports, cricket is in a strange place. The rise of T20 and franchise leagues, fuelled by the IPL’s success, is a direct contradiction to other countries’ preferences for lengthy Test series that slowly build into dramatic finishes. To say India want to focus on white ball while England and Australia yearn for tradition is untrue. Yet it remains a fact that plenty of copycat franchise leagues are set up either to copy the IPL and draw massive crowds or, if all else fails, give TV stations something to show to the illegal gambling market on the subcontinent.

A gross generalisation, one which discounts my own experience where friends in their 20s are still invigorated by long-form cricket, might point to the following: Asia has a younger, developing population growing up on a diet of universal 4G coverage, living in a fast-paced online world more suited to short-form cricket. India still has significant interest in Test cricket, but it has cracked T20 better than any other nation. The rest of the big three, England and Australia, have ageing populations which dictates more slow-paced cultural norms.

How does global cricket marry the two competing traditions? India has arguably one of the world’s only meaningful T20 competitions while battling England and Australia for red ball supremacy as often as the calendar allows. Can the sport survive on such a limited diet of meaningful contests? India draw crowds wherever they go due to the size of the diaspora. But do we really want a sport where one team serves as a touring megalodon propping up the finances of host boards who can’t convince their own fans to part with cash?

As global cricket struggles with multiple identities, Ireland has been left behind. CI is trying to jump on the already full franchise bandwagon and start the European T20 Premier League. If it works, it will lead to a short-to-medium term cash hit. But not competitive context.

Optimistic predictions would say it will take some time for the competition to move the needle by drawing in casual Irish sports fans. A more realistic analysis would be that drawing in walk-ins on a Tuesday afternoon with no floodlights will never work.

All this while CI is moving heaven and earth to host New Zealand at Stormont next year and potentially move Bangladesh to the UK. After the summer that was, no one can complain about more fixtures. But will they matter?

The women’s T20 World Cup next summer could lead to a spike of interest in the sport given Ireland’s short form strength and a competition structure which leaves a semi-final spot in reach. Other than that, though, we’re struggling for any sort of narrative.

That won’t matter to you or I, those who are either paid to watch Irish cricket or who pay to watch it. But for growing the sport, if the aim is to capture the wider population even to a fraction of the degree in which the World Series dominated the city from which I write this, you can’t just play matches for the sake of it.

The response to public outcry at a lack of cricket isn’t just to throw the proverbial at the wall and hope people care. Life is expensive and the entertainment landscape is more competitive than ever. Build it and they will come doesn’t work anymore. I’ve bumped into plenty of cricket people at Bohs matches in recent years because they admire the club’s left-wing identity. And the Fontaines jerseys.

Play cricket with context, matches that matter beyond ‘Isn’t it great we finally have something to watch?’ CI is trying, to an extent. They can only do so much within their commercial limitations and they don’t have a track record of scheduling creativity. The ICC needs to pull its finger out. The ECB could also do more.

Provided more tickets are sold than the last time Belfast held a Test, will next summer see strangers hugging in the Stormont bar as Mark Adair nicks off Kane Williamson?Not along the current narrative arc. Or lack thereof.