'Serious questions' to be asked as Cricket Ireland set to review early World Cup exit
Andrew Balbirnie dejected as Ireland made a premature exit from the World T20. Picture:Â INPHO/Pankaj Nangia
Improving facilities in the country is the "number one priority" for Cricket Ireland as the sport's governing body launched a performance review following the side's early exit from the World T20.
After defeating the Netherlands in the tournament opener in the UAE, defeats to Sri Lanka and Namibia meant an early exit for the Andy Balbirnie captained side, who will now have to get through the minefield of a global qualifier to reach the next edition in Australia next year.
Chief Executive Warren Deutrom said the board were engaging with government officials on both sides of the border as well as Sport Ireland to help finance an improvement in facilities, an area where Ireland are well behind their international counterparts.
Deutrom added that a turf pitch at the High-Performance Centre - which had been laid in 2019 with an 18-month bedding-in period - failed to pass the testing phase once players began using it and now requires urgent remediation work.
“Our starting point is to know the current lie of the land," said Deutrom. "During the recent season, one of the initial priorities of our new Cricket Operations Manager has been to assess and audit facilities available to the high performance set-up around Ireland. The first phase of this audit has been completed and the Facilities Committee will shortly begin the work of prioritising projects.
“As part of this process, we have already submitted a range of requests under the Irish Government’s recent sports capital grants scheme, and initiated discussions with governments and sports bodies on both sides of the border on funding opportunities for critical projects – both in the high performance and grassroots areas.
"We are also engaging with our provincial unions in this process to make it a whole-of-cricket approach and ensure that we are speaking with one voice on the importance of supporting our sport at all levels."
Cricket Ireland chair Ross McCollum said that everyone associated with the sport in the country were disappointed "at the timing and nature" of the tournament exit in the UAE.
"Whilst there were no doubts expressed about the attitude, commitment and hard work of players, coaching staff and administrators, the Board has directed that the normal planned post-event review should happen as quickly as possible and includes all elements pertaining to tournament preparation and performance – such as event performance and cricket operations supporting the international set-up – and, where appropriate, take any remedial action," he said.
The review will look at Ireland's preparation period for the World Cup; an analysis of performance during the tournament; the quality and availability of cricket facilities across Ireland; selection policies and procedures; coaching structures currently in place, and; the administrative side of operations.
“What happened last week, though, has given us the pretext to step back at this point in time to ask serious questions of our operations ahead of a very busy few years," McCollum added.
On the field, Ireland are next in action in January, where they tour the Caribbean to take part in a World Cup Super League series with the West Indies. They are due to play a World T20 global qualifier in February, before hosting Bangladesh and New Zealand next summer.
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