Cricket Ireland has become only the second sport in Ireland to offer full-time professional contracts for seven members of the Ireland Women’s Cricket team.
A further nine part-time and educational contracts, as well as four non-retainer contracts, are also part of a €1.5M investment in the women’s game, three times what it was in the last year pre-pandemic.
Three of the world’s best teams will tour Ireland this summer, with Australia, South Africa and Pakistan all travelling to Ireland for what will be a busy year.
Head Coach Ed Joyce has also signed a three-year contract extension on a day that was pretty special for the sport.
Laura Delany, Shauna Kavanagh, Sophie MacMahon, Cara Murray, Celeste Raack, Eimear Richardson and Mary Waldron are the players to be awarded the twelve-month full-time contracts and these will be supplemented by match fees and bonuses.
It will allow the players to take a break from the employment they previously had to hold down in order to compete and will allow for real advances in terms of preparation and development.
The education contracts are designed to work around players who are at school full-time or studying at a tertiary level. Players on these contracts gain a significant living allowance to ensure they do not need to find a job during their education years, and can instead concentrate on their cricket. Most of these players will be effectively full-time in the summer holidays.
South Africa will play six games in Dublin between 3rd and 17th June While Ireland, Australia and Pakistan will play a T20I series in Bready between 16th and 24th July.
Investment
From 2016 to 2019 the annual investment in women’s cricket was approximately €500K per annum. In 2022, the annual investment will triple to €1.5M.
Expenditure is holistic, demonstrating a strategic approach to the women’s game, and includes areas including player contracts and match fees, coaching and support staff salaries, cost of home and away fixtures, uniforms, equipment, venue hire, nutrition and lifestyle management, talent pathway, Academy and Super Series costs.
In addition to this is further investment in the grassroots of the sport which benefits girls and mass participation programmes.
“Last year we released our new Strategic Plan and our first-ever Women’s & Girls Cricket Action Plan,” said CEO Warren Deutrom.
“Both of these documents outlined Cricket Ireland’s national commitment to growing the sport from grassroots to elite levels. Today’s announcements underline our deep commitment to women’s and girls’ elite cricket and put us firmly on the path of not only becoming a major nation in world cricket, but a major sport in Ireland.”
“However, the work behind-the-scenes to get to this point has – in reality – been three years in the making. Coming off the back of the team’s performance at the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup in 2018, we – as an organisation – committed ourselves to a journey to professionalise women’s cricket. It was not only a good thing to do, it was the right thing to do. Women’s cricket’s time has come around the world – we’ve seen the incredible growth and professionalisation of the women’s game across several major nations like Australia, England and India and the strong focus on female cricket in the new ICC strategy. It’s now Ireland’s turn.”
“We are today only the second women’s sport in Ireland to offer 12-month, full-time contracts after the Rugby 7s squad – and this we are intensely proud of. If in the past our focus was primarily on men’s senior cricket, now our focus is equally on the women’s game as the shopfront for advancing our sport. Today we proudly boast a national women’s squad that features full-time central contracts. This is almost the exact path the men’s game followed a decade ago – albeit the progress of the women’s programme will advance at a quicker pace.”
“It may surprise many people to hear that the first evidence of women’s cricket in Ireland dates back 138 years, with Ireland Women playing their debut international in 1983. I would doubt that many of the women playing up until recent times would ever have dreamed we would be where we are today. That is progress and an organisation holding its hands up and acknowledging things have to change. That is where we are today, but this is not the destination, rather the start of a new era.”
Intent
“Today’s announcements demonstrate a clear intent to not only further develop our performance pathway but now forge a career pathway for our women cricketers,” added High-Performance Director Richard Holdsworth.
“To get where we are today has been a true journey – not a smooth journey, and certainly not a straightforward one, but we are finally seeing the delivery of commitments we have made over recent years.”
“To see a €1.5 million spending commitment this year on the women’s performance programme is remarkable. We have tripled the annual budget of the programme since 2016, and this commitment has been achieved through hard work, research, consultation and seeking expert advice.”
“As a squad, we are truly excited and thankful for this opportunity – it is something that many of us never would have dreamed of when we started out playing the sport we love,” said Team Captain Laura Delaney.
“While thankful, though, we also acknowledge the hard work, sacrifice and commitment shown by the players to achieve the honour of representing our country at the highest levels.”
“And, as fortunate as the players here today are for having this opportunity, we know that we are standing on the shoulders of the giants that came before us. For many years, legends of our Irish women’s cricket have fought hard to achieve successes on and off the field. To the generations of women who came before us, we say thank you. You have helped us get here today, and we hope we can do you proud.”
“To the squad, I say simply, enjoy it. Enjoy this opportunity – be thankful, but know that you’ve earned the right to stand where you are. This is Day One of what I hope is an incredible journey we will take together – it may get tough at times, it may be challenging, but it should be an experience like no other. To travel the world playing cricket for Ireland – there’s no better feeling.”
