ACS Overseas First-Class Annual 2020

589 Ireland in 2019/20 If you thought Ireland’s 2019 season was frustrating – a single Test match at Lord’s in which the national side was bowled out for 38, the six domestic first-class matches all completely ruined by the weather, and no other first-class cricket for the national side, or on the island of Ireland – then how do you describe their 2019/20 and 2020 seasons: no Test cricket anywhere, no first-class matches for the Ireland Wolves (the national A side), and the entire domestic first-class season called off months before it was due to take place?  It was not Covid that at first was to blame for the absence of Test cricket, but the fact that – not least for financial reasons – at international level Ireland preferred to focus on the shorter formats of the game. An Ireland team – either the Wolves or the full national side – participated in four ODI or T20 international tournaments before the Covid curtain came down, and four more were lost to the pandemic. But of Test cricket there was no sign. Even a projected home Test against Bangladesh in the summer of 2020 was later replaced in the schedule by an extra short-form international, although in the end the entire Bangladesh tour was lost top the virus.  But it was certainly Covid that did for the domestic season. The first-class Inter-Provincial Championship, scheduled for August and reduced this year to three matches instead of the previous six, was an early cancellation; as in due course was the entire domestic 50-over competition (the Inter-Provincial Cup) and much of the interprovincial T20 competition, which at least got started before the plug was pulled midway through the programme.  Irish cricketers were no longer permitted to play first-class cricket for English counties unless they were registered as overseas players, and so there were no opportunities for established or promising players to participate in England’s Bob Willis Trophy. For the one or two with short- form reputations already established there were opportunities to show off their skills in the various T20 competitions around the world (including in England). For the rest, despite the best efforts of Cricket Ireland to keep things going: almost nothing.  At the time of writing, the prospects for the coming months are not good. No Test matches are even pencilled in for the 2020/21 season, and the prospects of anything like a normal season in 2021 seem remote. For those – Irish players and supporters alike – who favour the longer form of the game, times are bleak indeed. (KSW)