Full Member Status

s3rtvdbwfj81ch

YAY!!!

https://twitter.com/Irelandcricket/status/877895517547659264

TheDoctor

About time, Afghanistan also awarded test status.

Hopefully will help the sport kick on here.

TheDoctor

Nicely updated

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_International_Cricket_Council_members

selwyn froggitt

Delighted

Right2Write

Great news. Anyone with details of the deal, how long will it last etc?

Neil3030

Great news - can players like Joyce and Morgan play test cricket for Ireland having done so for England?

VillaMad

Fantastic news. The trojan work done by so many people at the grassroots level has been finally rewarded. Warren Deutrom has been a fantastic driving force as chief exec behind the push towards test status and for him and so many others before, this is the day, that they probably never thought would come.

It's not just getting the right to play test matches that is brilliant, it is the fact now that Ireland will have access to much higher funding for training facilities, better pitches, grounds and the money to have more full-time players, etc, etc.

The long term future of the game in Ireland now looks a whole lot more rosier.

VillaMad

Neil3030 wrote: »

Great news - can players like Joyce and Morgan play test cricket for Ireland having done so for England?

Joyce has been back playing for Ireland for a number of years.

Morgan will continue to play for England. The only way that he would ever play for Ireland again would be if he didn't play for England for about 3/4 years I think, although I could be wrong.

One massive positive about today is that the poaching of the likes of Rankin/Joyce and Morgan would be a lot harder for England.

dfx-

Remarkable achievement in a short timeframe. ODI status in 2005, only twelve years to Test status.

Fratton Fred

Brilliant news and a credit to some incredibly dedicated people.

Bring on the first test.

judeboy101

I cant wait to go to a test series on Irish soil, now start working on a decent stadium :P

Jayop

Fair play to them all. Now I personally find test cricket impossible to watch but I've really enjoyed watching the Irish lads at the World Cups in recent years putting in some excellent performances and taking massive scalps. Always great to see an Irish team or athlete reach the pinnacle of their chosen sport.

Stheno

Jayop wrote: »

Fair play to them all. Now I personally find test cricket impossible to watch but I've really enjoyed watching the Irish lads at the World Cups in recent years putting in some excellent performances and taking massive scalps. Always great to see an Irish team or athlete reach the pinnacle of their chosen sport.

I remember the day they beat England in the world cup, there wasn't a tap of work done in our office.

Congrats to all who worked to achieve this

citytillidie

Reading the comments on the BBC website lots of English fans upset that Ireland got the test status saying it will be a massive one sided games. They are not seeing the bigger picture being a full member will only help the game grow here and with that stop England taking Ireland's better players.

s3rtvdbwfj81ch

Any test matches between Ireland and any of the top 8 teams will be massively one sided for at least a generation, if not more.

But it's not about the tests really.

Conchir

Even though it's probably still a while away, I cannot wait to sit in the sun, beer in hand, watching Ireland play a test in Malahide. Unreal stuff.

Conchir

RTE reporting that Cricket Ireland will be talking with the ECB about the possibility of a Lord's test in 2019. Obviously it's all conjecture at the moment, but to be at the stage where this is even a possibility is amazing.

minitrue

Speaking of RTÉ, they just about managed to get a camera and man in a suit out to Oak Hill in time yesterday while play was still in progress, the following happened on the last ball of the 10th over of a possible 17 in Leinster's attempt to thrash 167 for the win (the teams shook hands after 16 with 44 still required), the Warriors only needed to bat about another 2 minutes for there to have been an option not to even start the final innings.

Unfortunately though Jack Tector's attempt to smash one into the back of the guys head fell maybe 10m short with both cameraman and reporter completely oblivious If it wasn't perfectly on line it was damn close but thankfully for Jack the fielder couldn't quite hang on (though he saved the 6 so it was only a 2). It didn't go out live and of course the editor didn't spot it so no comment about it made it on to the air either

holidaysong

Pleasantly surprised this has actually come at this juncture. And thankfully we don't have to rely on winning the Intercontinental Cup to get a shot at the prize. It's ten years since I watched my first Irish match on TV vs. Zimbabwe in the 2007 WC and got hooked. Absolutely delighted that this has come in such a relatively short period. The likes of Joyce, Stirling, Porterfield and the O'Brien's really deserve the opportunity to lead Ireland into our first test. And I hope some others like Mooney and Johnston who have done so much to get us here are taking pride also in this achievement.

Royale with Cheese

Any idea when the first test will be? Or the opponents? Maybe a one off game against Afghanistan to ease both countries into test status.

Right2Write

Any word yet on how long this applies for and what additional funding will come from the ICC??

minitrue

No provisos mentioned so far that I've seen and it's full member status and not simply test status (there was talk of splitting the connection between those). There is certainly the scope for all the teams to lose their full member status but it seems to require them establishing how to remove a full member for us to lose this, we are in for the long haul and can build for the future! Funding is still up in the air but it's expected we'll at least double our funding if not more.

LDN18

citytillidie wrote: »

Reading the comments on the BBC website lots of English fans upset that Ireland got the test status saying it will be a massive one sided games. They are not seeing the bigger picture being a full member will only help the game grow here and with that stop England taking Ireland's better players.

U forget that Ireland poach players from abroad in rugby????

TrueDub

LDN18 wrote: »

U forget that Ireland poach players from abroad in rugby????

So do every other nation, in every other sport. Ireland are neither the worst or the best at it.

It's off-topic for here though.

As for cricket, players can still move countries via the residency criteria, so someone who thinks they'd prefer to play for England can still do so. The "need" to move to play test cricket no longer exists, however.

Right2Write

minitrue wrote: »

No provisos mentioned so far that I've seen and it's full member status and not simply test status (there was talk of splitting the connection between those). There is certainly the scope for all the teams to lose their full member status but it seems to require them establishing how to remove a full member for us to lose this, we are in for the long haul and can build for the future! Funding is still up in the air but it's expected we'll at least double our funding if not more.

That is encouraging. I was thinking that maybe it was subject to some review so as to allow other countries to swop in and out like a relegation zone. But longer term, if what you say is true that will give a real platform for development. We'd want to be getting more money out of the ICC, a lot more than double.

minitrue

The way it looks is the more we get the less the associates will be getting and we are going to be (in money terms and in terms of their mooted plans for a test championship) a bit second tier. We were getting about $20m over 8 years from the ICC and the rumours were of a figure like $54m but with the adjustments that went on to bring India in and make it a unanimous vote I think we'll be lucky if it is $50m but it might be as low as $40m. We should expect that we'll be able to bring in more revenue though off the back of it so either way it's a significant increase in funding.

Really the massive change is we are now full members (along with Afghanistan) with full voting rights on a board that is also expanding out to 17 equal voting members, 12 full members (including ourselves and Afghanistan), an independent female director, 3 Associate voices and a chairman, 12 votes (2/3rds) are required to pass resolutions. I think the Big 3 era is already well and truly over!

If the mooted plans from 2019 are confirmed while we will be shut out of the test championship schedule (as are Zimbabwe), we will be (along with a 13th side) part of the ODI "league" which will see us have 2 home and 2 away mandated ODI series each year (which should each be 3 ODI series best I can tell) so in 2020/2021 as it's proposed we would welcome NZ and Bangladesh and travel to Afghanistan and England and in 2021/2022 we would welcome SA and Zim and travel to West Indies and the 13th team. I suspect we could expect at least one Test with each of those teams (bar the 13th team obviously) and probably at least Zim and the Afghans would be keen to play more Tests. Outside of all that it's negotiating time to arrange more games but we'll have an consistent under-pinning of games and a vote to be courted to encourage more.

There is also to be a "membership board" being set up to monitor the status of all members but with the larger board breakdown I think there is little fear of us being unceremoniously dumped out too quickly unless our administration falls completely off the rails.

s3rtvdbwfj81ch

minitrue wrote: »

unless our administration falls completely off the rails.

So basically, do things in the completely opposite way to the way the FAI do things and Irish Cricket is sorted for the medium-long term.

Sweet.

Zaph

citytillidie wrote: »

Reading the comments on the BBC website lots of English fans upset that Ireland got the test status saying it will be a massive one sided games. They are not seeing the bigger picture being a full member will only help the game grow here and with that stop England taking Ireland's better players.

Different times admittedly, but it took New Zealand 26 years to win their first test match after gaining full member status. More recently, Zimbabwe have been full members since 1992 and have only won 11 test matches, including 6 against Bangladesh, and Bangladesh have only won 9 from 100 since 2000, 5 of them against Zimbabwe. So it's clear that one sided games are probably the norm for a significant period after full status is awarded, but that's not any reason to rescind it. Are those fans looking for Zimbabwe or Bangladesh to have their full status downgraded just because they don't win many test matches? Of course England haven't really benefited from taking the best players from those countries for their own team in recent years, so perhaps those fans are really more annoyed at the prospect of losing out on future Morgans, Joyces, etc.

riffmongous

Nice poll on cricinfo, almost 100k votes

Shiran

Good to see the achievement. Some good cricket in Irish soil!