Cricket Ireland will hope for a break in the weather this morning as it seeks to play yesterday’s postponed one day international against Afghanistan at Clontarf.  Tickets for yesterday’s fixture are valid again but while there is only light rain forecast for the area this morning, it has not been a kind summer.
The high profile international against Australia at Stormont was lost to rain in recent weeks and the momentum of a good year to date is at risk of dissipating for all but the hard core enthusiast.
Prior to these setbacks, the sport has had a wonderful year with qualification assured for September’s 2020 World Cup, sponsorship extended with RSA and a welcome additional grant of $500,000 per annum from the International Cricket Council.
That bodies newly elected President Alan Isaac was in Dublin yesterday for the game and gave a good interview to RTE Sport last night in which he outlined the purpose of the grant for development of more countries to achieve full test cricket status.
He spoke of comparisons to rugby where he has also held administrative roles and of cricket’s expansion in terms of World Cup numbers being down to countries having the right domestic and grass roots structures to provide for long term sustainability within the sport.
The grant which will run until 2015 has been earmarked by Cricket Ireland for a number of initiatives including securing additional fixtures against full cricket nations, the formation of a National Academy and the organisation of an Interprovincial Series.  These are aimed at continuing the development work being carried out throughout the country which has seen both the profile and number of participants of the sport growing exponentially.
“We are delighted and grateful to ICC for this award which will help Cricket Ireland achieve their stated objectives,” said Warren Deutrom, CEO of Cricket Ireland.  “We are exploring in greater detail the award and terms of the grant with ICC management in order to ascertain how to prioritise the funding towards the proposals that we outlined in our applications.”
It will not be enough to build a roof over any of the cricket grounds throughout the country but at least the sport can be applauded for the strong sponsor branding for RSA on the high visibility clothing worn by ground staff as they sought to make the pitch playable yesterday.
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