10 FOREWORD // IRELAND’S ROAD TO TEST CRICKET
IRELAND’S ROAD TO TEST CRICKET
Ireland felt encouraged to apply for Full Membership status after some display against Pakistan in their inaugural Test in Dublin.
OPPOSITE TOP: Ireland and Pakistan players pose together during the historic Test match in Malahide.
BELOW:
Kevin O’Brien celebrates scoring a Test century during the fourth day of Ireland’s debut Test match against Pakistan.
“It is going to be a pretty special occasion for the 11 walking onto the park,” he said. “But it would be remiss if we didn’t talk about everything that has gone before us. On and off the pitch, administrators and players have devoted their lives to make this happen. We’re just the ones lucky enough at the time of our careers to take
942 matches and although the 943rd started a were determined that the predecessors would not be forgotten.
The third day of the Test match at Malahide was Past Players Day, with every international – male and female – invited to attend as Cricket Ireland’s guest. More than 120 accepted from Godfrey Graham, then the youngest Ireland player on his debut in 1954 to Max Sorensen who retired in 2017.
Every past President was also invited but, among those missing were the late Derek Scott, the long- time secretary of the old Irish Cricket Union who was the main mover in getting Ireland Associate status in 1993, Dermott Monteith, the legendary captain in the 1970s and 1980s who went on to play for Middlesex and the vastly respected John Wright, who had laid the foundations for this day to become a reality.
in Phoenix Park on September 10-11, 1855 against the Gentlemen of England; Ireland won by 107 runs. played two matches in Philadelphia and by 1894 abroad in another two-day game.
a four-game tour of England in 1902, against London County – they won by 238 runs – and
Exactly 60 years later came the victory against the Windies which reverberated around the world, when Alex O’Riordan and Dougie Goodwin bowled them out for 25 and put Sion Mills, a small village in the north west of the country, on the map.
It was Cricket Ireland chief executive Warren Deutrom who launched Ireland’s road to Test cricket in 2012 when he unveiled their four-year Strategic Plan which included the vision to be “a Test playing country by 2020 – nothing less”.
The CEO was speaking from a position of strength themselves as the leading Associate nation and, after qualifying for the ICC Cricket World Cup for Pakistan and then England in 2011.
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