In cricket a century is a score of 100 or more runs by a batter in a single innings. In Irish cricket a century marks the gulf in time between the sport’s demonisation as a “foreign” import and its metamorphosis into an emblem of a new Ireland.
In 1901, nationalists declared a “struggle to crush English pastimes” and for decades marginalised cricket and other imports such as football and rugby to promote Gaelic football and hurling and to elevate Irish identity.
The Gaelic Athletic Association eventually lifted its edicts against non-native sport but for cricket the damage was done. Hugely popular with rich and poor in the 19th century, it limped into the 1990s stereotyped as a niche game for “west Brits” – posh Irish anglophiles.
Last Sunday Clontarf cricket club, in north Dublin, showed a scene transformed. Ireland’s women’s team hosted – and beat – England in a game screened live on free-to-air television.
Spectators, including migrants from south Asia, whooped and celebrated. Girls asked the winning players for autographs. “It shows the direction we’re heading in,” beamed the captain, Gaby Lewis.
The victory sealed a golden run for the sport on and off the pitch. Last month the government agreed to build a 4,000-seat cricket stadium to provide a first, permanent home in time for the 2030 T20 men’s World Cup that Ireland will host with England and Scotland.
“That’s a massive turning point for us,” said Richard Holdsworth, the high-performance director of the governing body Cricket Ireland. “Our players now travel the world and see the quality of facilities elsewhere. We need that here.”
The new stadium and high-performance centre at the Sport Ireland campus in Abbotstown, west Dublin, will obviate the need to temporarily upgrade club grounds for international fixtures, a recurring, expensive rigmarole that drains finances and complicates fixtures.
In June, Belfast city council approved a £25m multi-sport redevelopment project at the Stormont estate that will include a cricket pavilion, another boost to a sport organised on an all-island basis, spanning both sides of the border. Cricket Ireland also hopes to upgrade the grounds of Malahide cricket club, in north Dublin, to international level.
The new infrastructure reflects growing visibility and political clout. New clubs are sprouting especially in Dublin and the surrounding Leinster province, which is home to many Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Afghans and others from places where cricket is popular. An estimated 60% of players in Leinster are from south Asia, says Holdsworth. “Cricket is in their blood. They’re hugely passionate about it.”
Anand Kumar, who was watching the game in Clontarf, said about half of the players at his club in Malahide came from Asia. “Cricket is becoming more popular and competitive. You see the pitches getting better.” When Ireland plays India, Kumar roots for his native country while his teenage son cheers for Ireland.
Schemes called Smash It and It’s Wicket have drawn children, especially girls, who have followed the feats of players such as Lewis, Orla Prendergast and Amy Hunter. “People can see our top players in action and see they are relatable. It’s not the old, stuffy image with cucumber sandwiches,” said Brian MacNeice, the chair of Cricket Ireland. “Success breeds success.”
Sunday’s dramatic victory – the first time the Irish women’s team has beaten England in the Twenty20 format – followed a defeat the previous day and tied a two-game series. At Stormont last month the Irish women completed a 2-0 series win over Sri Lanka, the Asia Cup champions.
Ireland’s men’s notched their second ever victory in a Test match – the game’s longest format – in July when they beat Zimbabwe.
Stella Downes, Cricket Ireland’s president, remembers humbler times for the national team. “To beat an English county team was all we aspired to. When we beat Middlesex (in 1997) we dined out on that for years.”
Several factors contributed to the turnaround. The economy boomed, drawing people from abroad. And the men’s team scored famous wins. At their inaugural World Cup in 2007 the team knocked out Pakistan and made it to the Super Eight stage, prompting a rapturous homecoming. They scored another shock by beating England at the 2011 World Cup.
Such triumphs were sporadic but made Ireland a darling of India’s cricket fans, creating opportunity for Irish trade and branding, said Holdsworth. “The government started to realise the global reach.”
Ireland became a full-member of the International Cricket Council in 2017, paving regular encounters with top-notch teams.
In Ireland cricket still trails Gaelic football, hurling, soccer and rugby and it is a minnow at international level – by some estimates 30 times smaller than English cricket. Talent has drifted abroad. Eoin Morgan, who led England to World Cup glory in 2019, is from Dublin.
But Downes is bullish about the future. The new stadium, bigger budgets, professional contracts, sponsorship, television deals – all are enticements to a game no longer deemed foreign but global, she says. “You can travel the world playing cricket.”