Pro Contracts for Women's Cricket

Cricket Ireland has announced that it is to provide central professional contracts to its leading Women players in 2019.

The decision was ratified at a meeting of the Cricket ireland Board last week and represents a major step forward for Women’s sport in this country.

“We are delighted to become one of a very select number of sports in Ireland to offer professional contracts to women players,” said Cricket Ireland CEO Warren Deutrom.

“It has been an ambition of ours for a number of years, and we now find ourselves in the position to push ahead with this much-needed improvement to our sport.”

“The professionalism shown by our senior women’s team during preparation, qualification and performance at the recent ICC T20 World Cup was a demonstration that this side of our sport is ready to progress and grow.”

“We have been steadily increasing our investment and support for women’s cricket over recent years. This has included the appointment of a full-time national coach, providing for loss of earnings for players throughout the summer, increasing coaching staff and coach contact hours, increasing overseas player development opportunities, provision of a dedicated Academy programme for girls, and facilitating greater access to support services such as physio and medical, strength and conditioning, psychology and nutrition education. In addition, the creation of the Toyota Super 3’s Series in 2016 has provided that vital bridge between club and international cricket.”

The first steps will be small ones with a limited number of contracts offered in early 2019 but once the principle is established it can grow at a pace which reflects the success of the team and the benefits that devoting full time to the sport can achieve.

A number of the players involved in the national team will also be students, both at secondary level and third level where varying degrees of support might also be made available.

“Like we did with the men’s side a number of years ago, we will now bring a measured approach to player contracts. A small number of part-time contracts will be offered in early 2019, with the plan to expand this programme over subsequent years,” added Deutrom.

“Once again, we are grateful to Sport Ireland for their support in investing in this important development for Irish women’s cricket, enabling us to move into this exciting new period in our sport.”

The ICC recently announced that the next iteration of the ICC International Women’s Championship, post-2021, will expand from eight to ten teams. As Ireland is currently 10th in the world rankings, the Board realises the opportunity is within Irish cricket’s grasp to cement a place when qualification comes around.

“The International Women’s Championship is an international cricket tournament used to determine qualification for the Women’s Cricket World Cup, and – like Ireland’s inclusion in the men’s Future Tours Programme – would mean that our senior women’s team will be playing some of the world’s biggest teams more regularly,” said Richard Holdsworth, Performance Director with Cricket Ireland.

“To prepare for our potential inclusion in the Women’s Championship, it will require further investment and improvements to be made in the women’s game – and a need to call on players’ availability more regularly. When relying on players who are juggling work and study commitments, availability for international games can quite often become a challenge. We believe that offering a small number of contracts, at least initially, will begin to ensure improved playing standards and better availability of our first-choice squad members.”

“We are entering a new phase in women’s sport in Ireland, and cricket is no different. Around the world we see an uplift of interest, participation and standards of women’s cricket and we are gradually putting in place a system to ensure that we not only continue to compete with the top teams, but advance the sport from grass roots to international.”