Who is Irish cricket for?

Matches are happening between Ireland and Italy - allegedly - while the ETPL ploughs on

Lorcan Tucker in action against Italy. 📸: Cricket Ireland

For once, doom scrolling proved to be more than brain rot.

A clip from NV Play’s social media accounts popped into view. The company which helps clubs (and Cricket Ireland, for what it’s worth) broadcast their matches posted a passage of play which saw a batter dance down the track to spin. He missed, of course. It’s club cricket, after all.

While swinging his bat back behind himself in a bid to make his ground before the inevitable stumping, our intrepid batter inadvertently launched the ball over the ‘keeper’s head via the back of the willow. I suppose you can’t be guilty of a double-hit if you missed it on the first attempt?

The viewing figures for this clip were not sought. Brain rot is labelled as such for a reason. But it’s safe to say if the algorithm threw it in this direction, it went in a fair few others as well.

The point of this contrived literary device, please?

Club cricket clips are accessible all over the interweb. Most of the time, so are the best bits of Ireland games. This same NV Play account previously posted that catch from Curtis Campher against England at Malahide.

Not this week, though. Not as the Irish men’s side returned to action for the first time this calendar year. Not as the build-up to the T20 World Cup, one of the two most important events for Irish cricket this year, got underway.

You can watch club cricket the world over. Heck, Pembroke stream every home match. Of course we’ll be able to watch Ireland’s series against Italy in Dubai. Sure Kev is coaching the oppo!

Sorry pal, we’re shit out of luck.

Not another column about Ireland and broadcast issues…

Believe me, I’m sick of it too. There have been rants when tours of Zimbabwe were not shown back home. Rogue agents who acted as third-party broadcast rights sellers didn’t help there. This, though is different.

Those games were recorded professionally. A production company was on site. Just the feed didn’t make its way to these shores unless VPNs were purchased or personal details handed over to Bet365.

This time, as Ireland play Italy in Dubai across three T20Is, there is no production company. Neither Cricket Ireland nor the Italian Federation wants to pay for the expensive cameras. These games acting as World Cup preparation, as opposed to fan entertainment, is the priority for a pair of cash-deprived boards. Given the low profile of the teams involved, a UAE-based production company isn’t going to pay for the privilege. So, no feed to be distributed. Quite literally, nothing to see here.

The above is partly true. There is a recording of the action, if not a feed. Ireland’s analyst, as is the norm, has positioned a camera close to or on the sight screen at one end. It’s stationary, meaning any action which leaves the square is not visible. But player reaction and umpire signals give plenty away.

Why can that feed not be distributed to a mass audience? Alongside the analyst’s equipment, a second laptop needs to be present to turn video into a streamable feed. No member of CI’s media team (an already understaffed group stretched further by promoting the women and U19s at the same time as the senior men) is currently in Dubai. No one with the expertise or, presumably, the correct accreditation given electronic device limits as part of anti-corruption measures, is on site

A lot of moving parts to provide some nuance behind the straightforwardly bizarre reality that, in this particular instance, Rob Delaney swearing on the Pembroke stream is more accessible to the public than Ireland internationals.

You can make up your own mind whether or not the above offers any sort of acceptable context. No prizes for guessing opinions in these parts.

It is, quite frankly, a ludicrous state of affairs. Flying staff to Dubai is expensive. Especially if it’s just to bring a second laptop. Surely there’s the budget to pay a local PR/comms freelancer a daily rate to sort the whole thing. Creative solutions and all that.

While frustrating, none of this is the overriding point.

The cricketing blackout came on the back of the recent ETPL announcement in Sydney. Three of six franchises have been sold. High-profile Aussie and Kiwi investors are involved. Finally, this thing seems to have legitimate legs.

Only the flagship moment for a much-maligned, borderline toxic concept (as far as public opinion is concerned) came almost as far as you can possibly get from the continent which is supposed to benefit from this influx of short form cricket and, far more importantly, cash.

Why were Steve Waugh - owner of the newly-minted Amsterdam Flames - and Abhishek Bachchan - the investing face of the league - doing media rounds on Australian television and with Indian influencers? (The answer: to keep luring investors from strong cricket markets.) To be fair, they did do one hit on BBC Northern Ireland. It would have made more sense to get Glenn Maxwell or one of the other owners of the Belfast-based franchise to do that particular interview. Take the small victories for now. They’ve been a long time coming.

Plenty fear that the ETPL is something happening to European cricket, rather than necessarily for or with it. Otherwise the launch would have been in the Guinness storehouse. Or the Van Gogh museum. Or that castle on the hill in Edinburgh. There may be a second launch in Europe come spring time. But can you really launch something twice? The cat is out of the bag.

There is a nuanced discussion to be had on the merits of the ETPL for Irish, Dutch and Scottish cricket. Some of the investors, particularly in the Irish Wolves, have made intriguing noises on how they can partner with Cricket Ireland, as opposed to whatever Mumbai Indians Dublin will do (yes, that does seem to be the direction of travel). More details on all of that to come later - probably next week.

Cricket, like all sport, is a community asset. Not a stock exchange. A handful of notable exceptions aside, franchise cricket forgets that. The influx of investment (even if lower than originally sought) creates discussion. Your man paid how much?

Plenty of franchise interest across the world is drummed up by investment or player recruitment, not the actual cricket. There is little reason to believe the ETPL will be any different.

Irish cricket is not the ETPL. But our governing body does own 20% of the league, so it’s not not the ETPL either. They didn’t have control over the timing of the announcement. No current CI employees were pictured at any of the Sydney bashes.

Still, more so than most governing bodies in recent years, CI has learned that perception is reality. Here is the lingering brain child of the Warren Deutrom era finally getting its big break, with attention served to luring investors in faraway lands. Meanwhile, we can’t get a bloke with a second laptop to ensure we can watch a grainy, stationary camera two weeks out from a World Cup. It’s not the same organisation making these different sets of decisions. But there’s plenty of crossover in terms of the individuals involved. What are their priorities?

We’ve long made the point that the focus for CI’s incoming new leadership should be to reconnect with the core audience. Convince the domestic fanbase which stayed up to watch the Ashes to instead buy tickets for Malahide, Stormont and Bready. New CEO Sarah Keane is involved in the background, but she’s not officially in the door yet. The events of the past week shows just how big a culture shift she’ll have to hammer home.

When crowds at the Stormont Test in May are inevitably low because we still don’t know exact dates less than four months out, combined with the apparent apathy towards convincing people that this men’s team is worth our attention * checks notes * a FORTNIGHT out from a World Cup, don’t come crying back to us.

Sure, you got the lads games in preparation for Sri Lanka, a welcome boost after the barren summer that was. Given careers are on the line, players are entitled to worry about prep and nothing else. Yet while this is a career for some, pro sport is merely a child’s game played by adults if people aren’t given the opportunity to care.

Irish cricket is a small community but it will get behind a strong vision. Look at parents of the U19s enjoying their cheap pints in Windhoek. Travelling to watch your children at what could be the pinnacle of their cricket career is an easy sell. Building support from non-family members up through the ranks should be more straightforward than it’s been made to look. This either is not a priority or there isn’t the sufficient expertise in the corridors of power. The longer the fanbase is neglected, the more difficult a sell team Ireland becomes.

Who is Irish cricket for? Providing players for ICC events and new franchise leagues is all well and good. Not that CI has been particularly good at that prior to recent events in Sydney, given ETPL/Slam failings and the paltry international schedule.

At some point, though, the gaze has to turn inward. Glitzy investor press calls should pale in importance to growing the domestic support. We need people to stick around long after the new money dries up. Give them a reason to do so. All we wanted was a camera.