Saturday , November 23 2024

Cricket Ireland postpones its white-ball series against Australia

Dublin, 23 April. Cricket Ireland has postponed its white-ball series against Australia scheduled for August this year due to financial constraints.

Australia were scheduled to tour Ireland in August for three ODIs and a T20I series before the big series against England consisting of three ODIs and five T20Is. Cricket Ireland chief Warren Deutrom confirmed on Monday that the series had been postponed due to the board taking into account the anticipated financial loss it would cause to its organisation.

“We have very few pitches in Ireland that can host international cricket, so we had to make a very difficult decision,” Deutrom told The Final Word podcast, as quoted by Wisden.

He said, “For this we would have to open the Malahide Cricket Ground, and if we were going to do that, we estimated that opening Malahide would be a very significant loss for us. The fact is that, in terms of broadcast rights, Australia will probably be the fourth largest among all our various opponents… This doesn't even include the cost of production, considering the opening of Malahide and bearing in mind that it is a completely green-field site. “Unfortunately, we have to make these difficult decisions.”

Last year in August, Ireland hosted India for a three-match T20I series, which saw the return of Indian fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah to the game after a long layoff due to injury. In 2022, Afghanistan toured Ireland for a five-match T20I series in Belfast. Last year, Ireland played a home ODI series against Bangladesh at the Chelmsford County Ground in England and also played their 'home' matches against South Africa in England.

The Cricket Ireland chief focused on plans to build a new cricket stadium and justified the decision in terms of allowing increased investment in women's and age-level cricket.

“We are no longer a board that weighs itself exclusively by the volume of men's senior cricket we organise,” he said. We are going to try and obviously play Australia again in the future. But we are playing 46 international matches this year. We're supporting 47 or 48 matches at provincial level with our men's Inter-Pros, our women's Super Series; We have an emerging competition; our Wolves [पुरुषों की ए टीम] Has been in Nepal; We are going to host West Indies Under-23 this year. “It’s a huge part of representative cricket.”