Sponsor boost will push Ireland to the next level

Cricket Ireland’s multi-million euro, 10-year sponsorship deal with Indian company Shapoorji Pallonji has been hailed as a crucial step on the path to achieving Test status for the men’s national team by 2019.

The deal announced yesterday with the multinational conglomerate will award it naming rights of Cricket Ireland’s national academy and the new backers will also become an official partner to the national governing body.

“It is very important,” said Cricket Ireland performance director Richard Holdsworth. “A lot goes into a successful governing body. It’s not just about elite players in the men’s or women’s teams. It is about the whole infrastructure.

“It is about participation, educating people about the game. The ICC and its members will look at organisations like Ireland and say ‘okay, you might be winning a few games and the odd one against full members but have you got depth, succession planning’.

“If we are serious about playing Test cricket — and we are — then you have to have talent coming through which is going to be good enough to be successful against the full members in years to come.”

The Shapoorji Pallonji Group is a multi-billion euro organisation based in Mumbai that employs 26,000 people with a wide portfolio of interests in fields such as construction, biofuels, agriculture, engineering and shipping. This is their first commercial venture in Ireland. Chairman Shapoor Mistry is an Irish citizen whose mother was born in Dublin and the investment is one of the most lucrative and long-running deals ever struck in Irish sport.

Keeping Ireland’s best players under Cricket Ireland’s wing is seen as crucial in maximising the side’s potential and attaining Test status, with full-time contracts being introduced in 2009 and a provincial competition launched last year.

The academy is another branch of that. Opened last September, it has 22 inaugural inductees who travel between Dublin, Belfast and Derry for the most part although trips further afield are deemed vital to their education as well.

A number of players are already due to attend a specialist spin camp in Sri Lanka later this year and the influx of funds from Shapoorji Pallonji will be used to help offer the best tutelage available.

“Like a lot of these initiatives, it has been a long time in the planning,” said Holdsworth. “We want these players to have every opportunity to maximise their talents.”