Cricket Ireland is to substantially increase its funding of Provincial Unions and grassroots cricket. New funding announced after a Board meeting that saw the approval of a new budget for the sport in 2022 will include an additional €93,000 invested in development and mass participation programmes, as well as Women’s Pathway and an ‘emerging talent’ series.
A further €44,000 has been set aside for Strategic Programmes and community-based initiatives to be passed through to Provincial Unions attained through a successful Sport Ireland grant that will directly support grassroots and club cricket around Ireland.
The budget includes a €317,000 Facilities Investment Package which includes the immediate investment in hybrid pitch technology and wet-weather protective and maintenance machinery. This represents a 72 per cent increase on 2021 and is Year One of a multi-year programme being developed that will extend to a range of grounds around Ireland to improve the standard and durability of venues for international and domestic representative men’s and women’s cricket.
New hybrid pitches will be installed at the Cricket Ireland High Performance Centre and at three international grounds in 2022 – Malahide, Stormont and Bready.
The budget also contains a major new investment in the women’s high performance programme – further details about this will be announced in the coming weeks.
“When we outlined our new three-year strategy last year, we said we needed to do more to support the grassroots of the game, women’s and girls’ cricket and facilities,” said Cricket Ireland CEO Warren Deutrom.
“The strategy outlined that all parts of our sport are connected with a sustainable and vibrant grassroots supplying the pipeline of talent to the elite teams – one cannot thrive without the other.”
“We said that our task was about finding a balance between funding of the men’s senior team – for so long an investment priority for the business – and these other strategically-critical areas of our sport. The 2022 budget attempts to strike that balance and target these other priority areas.”
“We are an ICC Full Member trying to compete with other ICC Full Members on a fraction of the funding distribution, and a huge infrastructure deficit that drives up our cost base enormously. That means we need to be innovative, whether hosting our games in England, investing in hybrid pitches, leveraging our relationships to get high-quality fixtures, or rearranging our fixture load – it’s a juggling act to extract the maximum from our limited money, people and resources. These limitations mean that we can’t currently match the expectations that other nations see as automatic, but we always back our talent on and off the pitch to continue to punch above our weight.”
“In the medium-to-long term, though, it is critical that we advance the plans for suitable permanent facilities. Every other Full Member has the benefit of such facilities, and for Ireland to continue to develop competitive international sides and grow the grassroots of the sport then we must find a solution that will help fulfil our long-term ambitions.”
“This ambition is not a vanity project, but one which is crucial to the long-term sustainability of Irish cricket. Currently, we spend up to €1M a year – a big chunk of our total budget – on temporary infrastructure around international matches. A permanent dedicated facility would free up this money to spend on the sport and invest in other grounds and facilities around Ireland. We are pleased with the direction of talks with the Irish Government on this issue, and appreciate their support and recognition that we have an important role to play in the world’s second-largest sport.”
