Ireland and the fall that stopped but never stalled them
The CEO of World's largest sports video game seller Electronic Arts, Mr. Andrew Wilson, had this to say in an interview with Gameplanet in 2012. "A cricket game really needs the sub-continent to make it viable. And there is a series of barriers with respect to the economics, infrastructure, the disparity of mobile devices and services there. At the point that comes together, absolutely we’ll do a cricket game.”
EA Sports improves FIFA games by leaps and bounds every year but 2007 saw the last released version of a cricket game. When he points out that cricket game is only popular in the sub-continent, he has a fair point.
As opposed to football, popular in more than 200 countries, cricket is only played in a handful of them and as few as 10 play the ultimate format, Tests.
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In 2015, ICC declared that the 2019 and 2023 ODI World Cups would be ten-team tournaments as opposed to the 16 and 14 team events the World was used to seeing. There was widespread hatred at the move as the 95 Associate and Affiliate nations were, in a way, forced to play against each other forever.
"The idea and dream of playing in a World Cup is what inspired me to try and play for Scotland. I'm sure it was the carrot for many current and past Scottish players to play the game", Scotland captain, Preston Mommsen made his feelings clear in this statement released by ESPNCricinfo.
Ireland player, Niall O'Brien commented, "All the other sports are expanding their World Cups and we don't see why we should be shrinking ours. It's gut-wrenching. It's just a bit sad that potentially Ireland have played in their last World Cup."
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Four years prior to ICC's drastic decision, Ireland were thrashing the pioneer of this move, their neighbours England, in ODI World Cup in India. Batting first, England made a mammoth 327, that seemed more than enough to send Ireland packing.
But led by a belligerent hundred by Kevin O'Brien, Ireland chased down the score in the final over of the innings.
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The Cricketing World slept on 22nd June 2017 with utter joy as Ireland and Afghanistan were approved as Full Members of ICC, granting them Test status after years of turmoil and neglect. The boards of the two nations had applied to become Full Members and this was put to vote in a meeting and the two emerged unanimous winners.
"Test cricket is the pinnacle, it's the best. Not being able to play Tests was the reason cited by some players, who weren't able to achieve that career fulfilment with Ireland, as the reason they went to England," Cricket Ireland chief executive, Warren Deutrom said, as revealed by ESPNCricinfo.
"That reason is now removed, we can play Tests ourselves. Who can say for certain that players won't leave in the future, but that can't be the reason for it now."
The years of hard-work put in by these Associates cannot be stressed enough. After gaining ODI status in 2005, Ireland beat Pakistan two years later and then staged upsets over England and West Indies in two consecutive World Cups.
Surely that isn't very impressive. World Cups come once in four years and two wins over Test nations in four years is no big achievement to be proud of.
This is where statistics are skewed and screwed up.
In between the two World Cups in 2011 and 2015, ICC restricted opportunities for the Associate Nations so much that Ireland played just nine ODIs against Full Members during the period. Nine ODIs in four years is all they had when Full Members play at least 15-20 ODIs a year among each other.
The Full Member status is a huge achievement for Ireland and calls for celebration but no one would relish and rejoice it more than the man who switched allegiance twice and gave up County Cricket at the age of 38 to realise his dream of playing Test cricket for Ireland, Ed Joyce.
Frustrated by the lack of opportunities, a hoard of Irish players left to play for England. The list includes England’s current limited-overs skipper, Eoin Morgan, and Ed Joyce among others. Joyce started off well, establishing himself in the England middle-order and winning a place in the England Ashes squad of 2006/07, but never got a Test.
He played a few more games for England, notching up a maiden, match-winning hundred against the Aussies, that won him a place in the 2007 World Cup squad, where his home nation beat Pakistan to create history. But unfortunately, Joyce had to watch it all from the English dressing room.
The strong feeling of playing for his own birth nation stayed with Joyce and by the time the 2011 World Cup arrived in the sub-continent, Joyce was back in Green and Blue, representing Ireland.
“I was still playing well, and Ireland were an emerging team. We’d played well at the 2007 World Cup and looked like having a good team in 2011 and I knew I would make it stronger. When I was asked it was an easy decision for me," Joyce said of his migration, as revealed in an interview on Alloutcricket.com.
The decision was a backward step for someone who dreamt of playing Tests all his life. He had smashed over 1000 runs in seven successive seasons in County cricket but it all ended up in a few ODIs for England.
The ultimate reward would have been Tests, but in spite of making it into the Ashes squad, Joyce never won a cap. He did not even have a Championship title to boast of as Middlesex won only after he switched over to Sussex. Yet Joyce gave up all of it to return to Ireland and fulfill the ultimate dream of playing Tests.
Ireland has immense potential and a domestic structure that puts the West Indies to shame. Their provincial competition had been assigned First-class status, a first for an Associate Nation at the time. Joyce had vowed to give his all for the competition and fight for Test membership, all of which came true yesterday.
He is 38 and may not play a half-century of Test matches but what he fought to achieve for the youngsters of Ireland is something which will go down as his legacy. He strived to make the system better in his country and ensured youngsters who aim to be Test cricketers no longer have to switch allegiance to England.
Also Read: A look back at Afghanistan’s meteoric rise in World Cricket