Irish cricket for the first time will have its full-time professional women\u2019s players in 2022 as part of an investment programme declared by Cricket Ireland.<\/p>\n

A pledge to invest \u20ac1.5 million in women\u2019s cricket in Ireland has seen 20 professional agreements offered, seven of which are full-time agreements, nine part-time, and four non-retainers.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

All full-time contracts will begin this month, which means Ireland will have the nation\u2019s first-ever full-professional women\u2019s cricketers progressing into the 2022 summer.<\/p>\n

The part-time agreements are designed to assist players who are in education, providing the financial support to fund their training, development and summer playing schedule.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe work behind-the-scenes to get to this point has – in reality – been three years in the making,\u201d Warren Deutrom, Chief Executive of Cricket Ireland, stated.<\/p>\n

\u201cComing off the back of the team\u2019s performance at the ICC Women\u2019s T20 World Cup in 2018, we \u2013 as an organisation \u2013 committed ourselves to a journey to professionalise women\u2019s cricket. It was not only a good thing to do, it was the right thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWomen\u2019s cricket\u2019s time has come around the world \u2013 we\u2019ve seen the incredible growth and professionalization of the women\u2019s game across several major nations like Australia, England and India and the strong focus on female cricket in the new ICC strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s now Ireland\u2019s turn.\u201d<\/p>\n

The total \u20ac1.5 million declared on Thursday, 10^{th<\/sup> of March, depicts a three-fold augment on spending from 2019.<\/p>\n}

\u201cIt is important to note that today\u2019s announcements are not a case of \u2018done and dusted\u2019,\u201d Richard Holdsworth, High Performance Director for Cricket Ireland, stated.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not a final destination. This is just the start of our new era. In 2021 our women\u2019s senior side qualified for the ICC Women\u2019s Championship \u2013 we don\u2019t want to just compete in this competition once, we want to stay there. We want to entrench ourselves in the top ranks of the women\u2019s game.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cToday may be the culmination of three years work, but it also represents the first day of a new project. A project to keep us in the top tier and to not only participate, but truly compete against the top nations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Furthermore, the authentication of the 20 playing agreements, Cricket Ireland have vouched that head coach Ed Joyce has concurred a three-year extension to his deal.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

And Joyce will look after a busy summer, with Ireland to host Australia, South Africa and Pakistan in a hard-pressed schedule.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Irish cricket for the first time will have its full-time professional women\u2019s players in 2022 as part of an investment programme declared by Cricket Ireland. A pledge to invest \u20ac1.5 million in women\u2019s cricket in Ireland has seen 20 professional agreements offered, seven of which are full-time agreements, nine part-time, and four non-retainers. All full-time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4778,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,34],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportzoclock.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4777"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportzoclock.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportzoclock.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportzoclock.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportzoclock.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4777"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportzoclock.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4781,"href":"https:\/\/sportzoclock.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4777\/revisions\/4781"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportzoclock.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportzoclock.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportzoclock.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportzoclock.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}