Last month, Kyle McCallan was given a one-match suspension for allegedly putting his club, Clifonville, ahead of the team representing the Northern Cricket Union, which was defeated by Munster at The Mardyke, in the Interprovincial Championship series. Thus McCallan, who has been a major representative performer these past several years, was left kicking his heels while Ireland were being bundled out of the NatWest Trophy by Leicestershire, the reigning English County Champions, almost two weeks ago.
National coach Mike Hendrick agreed with the decision to suspend McCallan - "you can't have people picking and choosing which matches they'll play in," he said. And the chairman of the national selectors, Ronnie Lawlor, in the course of an official statement dealing with the punishment meted out to McCallan, said: "The Irish Cricket Union views the Interprovincial Championship as an integral part of the process of selecting the international side."
Good and proper, too. You couldn't imagine, say, Peter Clohessy opting to play for his club when Munster, his province, were competing in the Interprovincial Championship, and getting away with it, now could you?
But anyone watching Leinster putting Munster to the sword in last Sunday's Interprovincial Championship decider in Cork, might have felt that maybe now the national selectors should do the honourable thing by imposing a one-match suspension on themselves and duly staying away from next week's three-day match against the South African Development XI at Castle Avenue. "But why?", I hear you cry, as you blanche in horror at such a prospect.
Well, given that the ICU "views the Interprovincial Championship as an integral part of the process of selecting the international side", and so on, it was rather astonishing that not one of that fine body of men, the national selectors, was to be seen, let alone heard, at The Mardyke on Sunday. They do give a great deal of their spare hours to cricket, and of course they are entitled to some quality time with their wives and families; still, given the emphasis officially put on that "integral part" stuff, to totally ignore the Cork match seems a trifle blase, to put it mildly.
Apparently, four of the six selectors were at Sunday's other interprovincial match, between North and North West at Woodvale. And reputedly, a highly respected and vastly experienced member of the Leinster team management was told to help the national selectors by keeping an eye on the goings-on in Cork, boy; but if that is true, then the selectors never had the slightest intention of going within the proverbial ass's roar of the Beautiful City, in the first place.
All right, of course they wouldn't have learned anything much at The Mardyke that they do not know already; but the same may be said about the McCallan affair. And how must they players feel?
By playing in the championship they are supposed to be in the representative shop window, after all. Yet the fact that young Anthony Hartigan hit a defiant 26, including five fours, when Munster wickets were collapsing like drunks at a fleadh cheoil, and that Shani Alam performed well with ball and bat in extremely difficult circumstances, matter not a solitary damn, for there was not one selector there to note their displays, for possible future reference.
Of course, to say that the Ireland team to play the South Africans was selected at Malahide last Thursday, after the Triple Crown debacle, is hardly to be in breach of the Officials Secrets Act. So much for all that pious old twaddle about the Interprovincial Championship being viewed as "an integral part of selecting the international side."
Methinks young Mr McCallan may be owed an apology.
Of course, the real custodians of secrets are Irish cricket administrators, at virtually all levels of the game. So it was no surprise on Sunday at The Mardyke to note (yet again) that absolutely nothing had been, or would be done, to bring an Interprovincial Championship game ("an integral part, etc, etc", remember?) to a wider audience.
No posters, no advertising, no score cards, no public address, no promotion, simply zilch - it's as if the people who run the game simply want to keep it to themselves. There were eight current international players in the Leinster side, two once and maybe future Ireland players in Munster's line-up, and surely that could have been used to "sell" the match; alas, when it comes to promotion, Irish cricket administrators are about as useful as the proverbial ash-tray on a motorbike.
Matters were exactly the same at Castle Avenue last Saturday for the Lewis Traub League final. This was a wonderful game which attracted a reasonably good crowd, but the numbers could have been greatly swelled by prematch advertising and promotion; it hardly needs to be said that - as usual - there was no public address, no score-cards, nothing to help the uninitiated.
The customer is king? Ideally, that's the way it should be; unhappily, the motto of those who should be pushing Irish cricket seems to be "sod the customer."
Looking to the future, the under-15 interprovincial tournament begins today with champions Leinster taking on Munster at Rathmines, and North and North West in opposition at Malahide. Leinster are chasing their fifth consecutive championship title.
LEINSTER UNDER-15 SQUAD: C Kelly (CYM) capt, R Maybury, B Coghlan, R Reid (all Clontarf), C Riches, J Pryor, G Logan (all Malahide), T Garry (North County), D O'Connor (Leinster), K O'Brien (Railway Union), R O'Donnell (Old Belvedere), S Morrissey (Merrion).
