FITNESS:Recent immigration and Ireland's success in international cricket has given the game a boost. First thing you have to learn, though, is the vocabulary, writes ANGELA RUTTLEDGE
MINE WOULD BE the perfect surname if I were a famous sportswoman – fairly distinctive, easily nicknameable. Think of the headlines: “Rutters in a Rut!” or, after a home game, “Rutt Rules the Roost”. If only I’d hadn’t been such a runty Rutt.
Butsy. Now there’s a nickname. The gent behind it is Owen Butler, former Ireland bowler, who explains his continuing involvement: “We usually play once a week during the season and twice a week there is training called ‘in the nets’, which is bowling and batting practice with nets on three sides to catch the balls. The season lasts from late April to mid September. The past couple of years the weather has been very bad. You can judge how good the summer is by how many games you get to play. If it rains all week the ground will be saturated and you can’t play because it affects the ball bounce and it’s not safe. So cricket is not like soccer where you just need a 90-minute window. You can have a nice sunny morning, but most games don’t start until noon and then the game lasts for seven hours.”
Seven hours – eek! But that’s not as long as test cricket, the game in its “purest form”, which lasts five days. Then there is the shorter form, Twenty20. Butler says for people who are watching cricket for the first time, Twenty20 is a good place to start, because it’s a faster game and there is always something happening.
Butler is now back with his first team, the Civil Service Cricket Club. “My dad always played with Civil Service, which is in the Phoenix Park. The club was established in 1863, but by the 1980s there were only 15-20 members, including my dad. Over the past 15 years, immigration has helped, with new members from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand – all countries where cricket is a huge national sport, boosting the numbers in the club.”
Ireland’s recent successes in world cricket have raised the profile of the game, and clubs say that interest in the game is growing.
For rugby union referee and former Ireland cricketer Alan “Lewi” Lewis, it’s a family affair – his dad Ian also played for Ireland. He has a photograph of himself as a youngster in the back garden, “with pads on up to my chin”. He says cricket is “passed from generation to generation, bringing parents and children together. One of the great myths about cricket is that it’s complicated, but it’s not, and when it’s in the family, the kids can learn that because they get to participate.”
Brendan “Ginger” O’Brien, former captain of the Irish cricket team, and his wife Camilla have produced an entire family of athletes. Niall and Kevin are both Irish internationals. Wicket-keeper Niall, now 27 and a senior player with English club Northants, says that when he was growing up, “the six of us, five boys and one girl, would be down at the grounds, playing cricket in the summer and hockey in the winter. We played everything: cricket, hockey, football, hurling.”
When I spoke to Niall he was making the best of a nasty ankle injury. “At least it means I can do things like come home to Sandymount, which I normally wouldn’t be able to do in the summer because it’s too busy.” Last month O’Brien gave a wicket-keeping masterclass to youngsters at Railway Union. Nickname please, Niall? “Nobby,” he says. “It’s just my initials with a ‘by’ at the end.”
While the professional standard is soaring, the social game is also enjoying huge popularity. Australian Ryan “The Dufster” Dufty joined Merrion Cricket Club when he moved to Ireland. “At home, everyone plays cricket. As soon as you can walk you get a cricket bat shoved into your hand. Every lunch break at school you play cricket with all your mates.” Dufty, a “deceptively zippy bowler”, is struck by the age group he plays against, which ranges from 15 to 50 years old. He says there’s a big social element to the club that spans the generations. “With Ireland’s successes in cricket, he says, in particular beating Pakistan in the World Cup, it’s becoming easier to recruit new members and interest in the game is gaining momentum,” he says.
Alan Lewis, a member of YMCA Cricket Club in Sandymount, says, “Six years ago, we had between 15 and 20 registered juniors. This year, between boys and girls, it’s more than 100. The gospel of the game has been spreading.” Lewis cites as examples the growth of clubs in north Co Dublin, in places such as Balrothery and Skerries, which have been part of the driving force in Irish cricket over the past 15 years. In particular, he mentions Hills Cricket Club in Skerries, which 20-25 years ago was just an agricultural field but is now a grassy patch on a par with Lords. “It’s the spirit of the community that built the club, everyone rowing in.”
He says one of the big problems with the summer cricket season is the unavailability of members because of holidays. However, Lewis suggests that some youngsters don’t want to go away because they are so engrossed in the sport. “It’s a technical game, but once they see the fruits of their labour they don’t want to miss out. There is also a huge friendship element of being in the club.”
Membership fees for cricket clubs around the country vary but are relatively low, between €150 to €250 per annum for full membership, significantly less than that for youths, as clubs try to recruit new players. The websites for the clubs mentioned here are: www.civilservicecc.com, www.merrioncricketclub.com, www.railwayunioncc.com, www.thehillscricketclub.com and www.ymcaccdublin.com.
To find out more about cricket in Ireland, visit Cricket Ireland’s website at www.irishcricket.org and follow cricket news on www.cricinfo.com.
Ed Sports is a dedicated cricket and hockey sports retailer with an online catalogue at www.edsports.ie (01-6677300). Starting with the basics, adult cricket shoes are available for €40-€95, and to give you the air of a person working up an appetite for cucumber sandwiches, white or cream slipovers and sweaters “with trim” start at €30, with the trousers about €22. In terms of protection for batting, gloves cost €25-€65, pads start at €35 and helmets at €30. Wicket-keepers’ gloves start at €30 and Gray-Nicolls has a very Batman-like face mask for €35. For bats, the sky is the limit (up to €345), but they start at about €30-€50. At Elverys, a GM Team Hero Cricket Set costs €29 for a cricket bat, rubber ball, batting gloves, four stumps and a set of bails. Junior cricket bats start at €40 and a ball is €15. www.buy4now.ie/elverys