CRICKET: Regardless of the result from tomorrow's ICC Trophy final in Castle Avenue, cricket at the highest level in Ireland is in for an exciting and challenging time over the next couple of years. The national side were pre-tournament favourites and the players must be getting used to going into most of their matches being expected to come away with a victory.
This is all about to change. Next summer, Ireland will play nine games against county opposition in the C and G Trophy. While the team may reasonably go into that tournament with a couple of victories as their goal, they will be underdogs in every match they play.
Whichever section they get into for the 2007 World Cup, they will not be expected to progress beyond the group stage.
Incidentally, depending on whether they win or lose tomorrow, it will either be Group One (Australia, South Africa and the ICC Trophy fifth-placed team, based in St Kitts and Nevis) or Group Four (Pakistan, West Indies and Zimbabwe, based in Jamaica).
If Ireland are going to keep the winning habit they have formed in recent seasons, changes must be made to the structure of how our elite players are managed.
At present, the Irish Cricket Union is fortunate to have the support of its clubs who employ several of the players despite the fact they're often away on international duty.
With the time commitments growing ever more onerous, this is not a situation that will be able to continue beyond this year.
It will no longer be fair to expect clubs to foot the financial burden when the players are away for half the season. If Jeremy Bray is a coach at Clontarf CC, for example, how can the club continue to employ him when he is constantly on international duty?
Former Leinster Cricket Union president David Williams flagged this issue at the ICU agm in February and it is now time for the union to deal with it. Regardless of the financial implications, a way must be found to put a squad of 12 to 16 players on contract that could free them of their club obligations.
Ex-South Korea soccer coach Guus Hiddink manufactured a sort of Club Korea in advance of the last Fifa World Cup by keeping the squad together for longer periods and effectively suspending the domestic league season. No one is suggesting the ICU suspends the domestic programme but it is now time to create a Club Ireland in advance of the World Cup in less than two years' time.
For the first half of the season - at least until the nine C and G Trophy matches are played - the top players should train and play only with Ireland with more uncapped games and friendlies being added to the schedule.
Hiddink's team made it to the semi-finals of the World Cup, the best performance by an Asian team in the history of the competition and while it would not be fair or realistic to suggest that coach Adrian Birrell could take Ireland to the last four in the Caribbean, centralised professionalism is necessary if Ireland are to compete on anything approaching a level playing field in the years ahead.
The coach and players have justified the faith the ICU had in them by backing them to get to the West Indies. It is now up to the ICU to reward that by coming up with the funding to make sure they don't look out of place against the likes of Pakistan, Australia or South Africa.
We had a great response to our competition to win tickets for tomorrow's ICC Trophy final. The answer to the question of who qualified for the 2003 World Cup from the last ICC Trophy in Toronto was: Canada, Netherlands and Namibia. The winners are: Sarah Preston from Cambridge, England and Michael Cryan from Butlersbridge, Co Cavan. Enjoy the game!
