Cricket Ireland faces 'financial constraints', makes changes in future series

Cricket Ireland on Monday announced that they will play a T20I instead of a Test match against Bangladesh next year due to 'financial constraints'.

Chief Executive of Cricket Ireland Warren Deutrom said financial constraints have led them to cut the home Test match next year. He also confirmed that they will not be in a position to host Afghanistan for a planned five-match T20I series.

"The first area of prioritisation for 2020 has been white ball cricket over red ball. Like all Irish cricket fans, we would love nothing more than to be competing on all three fronts - Tests, ODIs and T20Is. Unfortunately, our financial constraints have led us to cut the home Test match next year. As the Test does not form part of the World Test Championship, the one-off match lacks context. For effectively a "friendly", the expected costs for hosting the Test would be over EUR1 million, with little expectation of creating revenue streams to cover the costs of hosting," Deutrom said in a statement.

"Those tough decisions also include having to prioritise some white-ball cricket over others. With Bangladesh and NZ coming over for important ODIs, it makes sense to extend their tours with complementary T20Is. Similarly, Pakistan is the #1 T20I team in the world and have proven popular visitors here over the years. However, we have notified the Afghanistan Cricket Board that we shall not be in a position to host them for the 5 planned T20Is in 2020," he added.

Deutrom said that both ODI and T20I matches next year have greater context and direct connections to two upcoming World Cups.

"The ODIs and remaining T20Is next year, on the contrary, both have greater context and direct connections to two upcoming World Cups. The T20Is will form essential match play experience leading into the T20 World Cup in October, while the ODIs will become important with the start of the new World Cup Super League next year, which is the next 50-over World Cup's qualification process," he said.

"This will mean that in 2020, three of the Bangladesh ODIs and the three New Zealand ODIs next year directly count towards world cup qualification," Deutrom added.