| Peter Roebuck | OTHER WRITERS |
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| Why Ireland should be a Test nation |
| November 5, 2009 |
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Ireland's current application for Test status ought to be taken seriously. Indeed, it ought to be accepted, and that means convincing at least seven of the 10 established nations to give it the green light.
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Not that the Irish can start playing Test cricket next month. Instead a time-table is required to give that fine land time to complete its preparations. Test cricketers cannot be microwaved. Nor can Test teams or grounds. If Ireland is to survive the awaiting examinations then it needs to get to work right away with a view to playing its first five-day match three years hence. It cannot be any longer delayed. Already Ireland's top players are trying their luck with England. Not content with pinching their potatoes, the Poms are now taking Ireland's players. All the more reason to get behind Boyd Rankin, Eoin Morgan, Ed Joyce and their comrades. There is a tide in the affairs of men and all that...
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Cricket needs to move beyond its tight little cartel of colonial and post-colonial countries. Otherwise it'll spend the rest of its history contemplating its navel and worrying about border disputes, despots, civil wars, religious and racial disharmony, suppression, patronage, rugby, soccer and all the other complications of contemporary and future life. The only way to avoid these internal battles periodically crippling the game is to widen its appeal, to turn it from an imperial relic into a world game. To that end the ICC has with increasing vigour and growing success been seeking to take the gift of the game to every possible nook and cranny of a shrinking world torn between tradition and Twitter. That is the way to breathe life into the game.
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