First T20 international: Ireland v England, Malahide, 1.30pm – Live on TNT Sports 1 and BBC 5 Live Sports Extra
Pigs aren’t airborne yet, but Tuesday’s edition of Morning Ireland featured a news hit on cricket. BBC Radio 5 Live are in Dublin to broadcast matches. For once, the press tent in Malahide will host more journalists than Cricket Ireland staff members.
England must be in town.
Wednesday marks the start of the sport’s biggest week on this island for some time. England’s Test match regulars aren’t in their squad, but multiple World Cup winners have still flown over for a three-match T20 series, their first multi-game trip to these shores.
In the press at least, casual eyeballs have been lured in. Yet among the country’s cricketing fraternity, what should be an occasion to match all others feels somewhat hollow.
RM Block
The build-up has been dominated by chatter of how undercooked Ireland are. In a disappointingly barren men’s home summer, they had only six games scheduled since May, the last coming in June. Three of those were rain-affected. Don’t mention this week’s forecast.
To say England have built into this series would place too much importance on proceedings from their perspective. This is little more than a coda to their summer, but the Hundred – their franchise short-form competition – combined with a series against South Africa ensures they are far better cooked than an already outmatched Irish opponent.
“There’s no doubt we haven’t been together long enough as a squad or played enough matches to feel in a confident mood,” acknowledges Paul Stirling, the Ireland captain.
“The hardest part about playing international cricket is adapting. Probably this time you’re adapting for the wrong reasons. We’ve got to go out and perform because people will expect you go out and score runs, take wickets and they’ll criticise you if you don’t.”
Aged 35, it’s tempting to say that Stirling has seen all of this before. When he gave up a career in English county cricket in 2019 to remain an Ireland international, he must have known he would be sacrificing game time due to Cricket Ireland’s (CI) finances. The nature of Ireland’s fixture cutback, though, could well have surprised even him.
It’s an issue which continues to haunt the organisation. On the eve of these games, it emerged that an upcoming winter tour to Bangladesh has had the scissors taken to it. CI wanted to drop one of the two floated Test matches. Bangladesh said no. The compromise was to get rid of three 50-over games, meaning an eight-match tour has been reduced to five [including T20s].
“I just want as much cricket as possible,” says Stirling. There are nuances around costs and prioritising different formats with a T20 World Cup approaching in early 2026. Still, the scheduling of the past few years has not been good for morale, either public or among the squad.
A winter tour of Pakistan has already been pushed back. There is suspicious radio silence on a proposed trip to Sri Lanka. Some games in January before next year’s T20 World Cup may well appear, but some trips appear to be a financial step too far.
Irish cricket is in a strange place. The cap on attendance around the 4,000 mark per match this week pales in comparison to previous visits of high-profile teams. A change of chief executive is in the offing, candidates currently being interviewed to replace the long-standing Warren Deutrom. A new figure will look to reinvigorate a sport struggling for domestic relevance. It will be some job.
It’s a sign of the negativity that, instead of the prospects of claiming an upset or two, Irish talking points focus on off-field issues. The barren fixture list for one. That the four most recent Irish debutants – set to become five this week – grew up playing cricket abroad, reflecting an apparent lack of faith in the Irish pathway, is another topic. Are we seeing the absence of access to English county cricket beginning to bite?
“I think everything comes first circle,” says Stirling. “The players who benefited from the English system are probably phasing out towards the back end of their careers.
“Whenever I started, Jeremy Bray, Trent Johnston, Alex Cusack, Thinus Fourie, the list [of foreign-born internationals] was long. It just feels at the minute, it’s a phase. Hopefully the development in Ireland is strong.
“I don’t see anything that would discourage me from that in the future but you’re right, I think we need to get that balance in check.”
It’s easy to get caught up in the off-field negativity. English trips here are rare occurrences. For all the legitimate questions, there is still a small trace of novelty which should build something approaching excitement. “Any time from a personal point of view I put on the Irish playing kit that gets the juices flowing,” says Stirling.
“We need luck, we need balls to go to hand instead of the gaps and we need to be clear in what we do and execute well. Whatever happens from there happens. It is the start of this process, we’re moving towards the World Cup.
“Whatever happens in terms of results this week, we’ll get a lot out of it.”
Squads
Ireland: Paul Stirling (captain), Ross Adair, Benjamin Calitz, Curtis Campher, Gareth Delany, George Dockrell, Graham Hume, Matthew Humphreys, Barry McCarthy, Jordan Neill, Harry Tector, Lorcan Tucker, Ben White, Craig Young.
England: Jacob Bethell (capt), Sonny Baker, Tom Banton, Jos Buttler, Jordan Cox, Sam Curran, Scott Currie, Liam Dawson, Tom Hartley, Will Jacks, Jamie Overton, Adil Rashid, Rehan Ahmed, Phil Salt, Luke Wood.
