Cricket Ireland are aiming for their sport to become far more visible around the country, according to chief executive Warren Deutrom.
On Wednesday, Cricket Ireland unveiled their Strategic Plan 2024-2027 that addresses both the sport’s growth over the past decade and what lies ahead going forward.
The strategy itself is built around five key pillars: growing the game, performing on the world stage, creating an engaged sport, building strong foundations, and working together.
Cricket Ireland plan to launch a new Club Fund – details of which will be revealed in September – along with elevating domestic competitions, building on Ireland’s cricket infrastructure, and encouraging broader participation through new initiatives.
More broadly, Cricket Ireland is keen on the game becoming a ‘major sport’ on the island; but what does that entail?
‘If you look at the concept of “jumpers for goalposts” in football, you want to be see kids playing the game day in, day out,’ Deutrom, who has served as chief since 2006, told Extra.ie.
‘You want to be able to see the sport visible when you’re going up and down lanes and roads at the weekend.’
‘I often go up the A5 on the way up to the north-west and on the way up to Derry there, you see cricket clubs on the the side of the road like Strabane, Donemana, or Fox Lodge and you just know that the sport is significant there.
‘That’s the kind of thing that I would look at it here. Being able to see it on television regularly; it’s talked about more frequently in the media and on newspages.
‘[We want] that visibility when you know something is big when you see it.’
The latest plan from Cricket Ireland puts more emphasis on the grassroots compared to recent strategies that have aimed to boost the high-performance side of the game.
On a national level, that scheme has resulted serious progress being made by both the men’s and women’s teams – especially with the latter
‘We’ve now got I think only the second Irish sport that actually has professional women contracts after the rugby sevens squad,’ Deutrom continued.
‘We’re beginning to see that’s actually having an effect now; we’ve had fantastic results for our women’s team in the last couple of weeks.
‘We drew a recent T20 series against Sri Lanka and we beat them 2-1 in the ODI series. So that’s clearly having an impact.’
While cricket is already the second biggest sport in the world, it is set for another major boost when it joins the programme for the 2028 Olympic Games.
Deutrom notes that Irish cricketers are already the most visible sportspeople in Ireland due to cricket’s reach; matches against the likes of India generate hundreds of millions of TV viewers on the subcontinent.
The Olympics would be another major step altogether and Deutrom feels that the sport will gladly embrace the opportunity in Los Angeles.
‘We need to find out first what the qualification criteria is going to be… we’re going to find out how many teams it is going to be early next year,’ he continued.
‘If there’s a qualification opportunity, there is every chance [Ireland can qualify].
‘The big strategic purpose of being part of the great Olympic family is that it can be visible to even more people around the world in countries that wouldn’t normally watch cricket.
‘I’m sure the opportunity for players to be visible and be part of the Olympic games [would be huge].
‘We saw it with the golfers didn’t we? In 2016… there weren’t that many golfers turning up. More turned up for the next Olympics in Tokyo and we saw now how many golfers want to be part of the Olympic family.
‘I’m sure it’s going to be embraced in the same way by cricket.’
