Cricket in Ireland could be pushed into the shadows of sports-lovers' minds after they fell out of contention for the 2023 World Cup. Ireland have lost the first three group matches in their qualifying campaign and will not advance to the Super Sixes, a disastrous result for the game in the country after it had begun to gain a foothold over the last 16 years.
Appearances at the 2007, 2011 and 2015 World Cups, accompanied by headline performances against Test teams, and their own elevation to Full Member status allowed cricket in Ireland to take up space in a packed sporting landscape. But their recent slide, which extends to missing out on the 2019 World Cup, and losing 11 of their last 15 ODIs, has seen the game take a dangerous backward step.
"Fifty-over cricket is what brought Irish cricket to prominence at home in the first place - not just at home but overseas as well. The World Cups in 2007 and 2011: those kinds of occasions are burned and seared into the Irish sporting collective memory," Warren Deutrom, Cricket Ireland's (CI) chief executive told The Final Word podcast earlier this month.
"Normally what happens is that a sport becomes big at home, then prevails on the world stage; we've prevailed on the world stage and we are trying to use that to drive success, visibility and cultural relevance [at home]. We've become a big nation in cricket, we want to become a major sport in Ireland."
While football (both association and Gaelic) remains the most popular sport in Ireland, their men's rugby union team have also captured the hearts of the nation. They are currently No. 1 in the world and are among the favourites for this year's World Cup, which will be played at the same time as the cricket World Cup that Ireland will miss out on. Apart from the attention those sporting codes could command at the expense of cricket, there is also a massive financial implication for CI following their World Cup crash-out.
The participation money for the tournament is US $1 million and that's before any corporate opportunities, which are desperately needed by Irish Cricket. Already, they are operating on a $5 million loan from the ICC to meet their operational costs and were hopeful a World Cup place would also bring a cash injection.
"There is a million dollars that comes with participation in the World Cup and there is a build up process in terms of talking about - where Irish Cricket becomes part of the national conversation for a long time," Deutrom said. "Because the 50-over World Cup lasts so many weeks, it gains and generates significant support from governments both north and south and it's an opportunity for commercial partners to say, 'That's something I want to be part of - an Ireland team on the world stage.' All of those elements are so important for us in terms of our credibility."
None of that can happen for CI now, and though there will be some dissection of how they found themselves in this situation, it can't last long. Three weeks after this World Cup Qualifier ends - and Ireland will have to hang around to compete in the playoff matches - another starts: the 2024 T20 World Cup Qualifier in Scotland. There, Ireland, who made it to the Super 12s of the last T20 World Cup, won't want to make the same mistakes they have so far with the one-dayers, most of them down to team selection and fixture prioritisation.
Before this tournament, Ireland were occupied with red-ball cricket and played a Test against England at Lord's. What could have been one of the most celebrated and memorable games for them was seen as not being a "pinnacle event" according to CI's high performance director Richard Holdsworth, because of the importance of back-to-back qualifying campaigns.
Immediately before that Test, Ireland hosted Bangladesh at Chelmsford in their last World Cup Super League series. Had they won 3-0, albeit each victory requiring a large margin, they would have automatically qualified for the showpiece event in India, and South Africa would be playing in Zimbabwe now. And before that, Ireland were playing Tests in Sri Lanka which may have informed their decision to pick legspinner Ben White for this series, even though he was expensive in Galle.
White offers the ability to turn the ball away from the right-hander, thought to be an advantage in Bulawayo, but he only took one wicket in two matches and was then replaced by Barry McCarthy, who took 3 for 56 against Sri Lanka. Another selection question includes the omission of Zimbabwe-born PJ Moor, who has not played a game, even though he would be most familiar with conditions. Moor has played nine of his 49 ODIs in Bulawayo and eight other List A matches there, and has two half-centuries and two scores in the 40s at Queens.
Nonetheless, before the Sri Lanka game, Ireland's coach Heinrich Malan insisted the team had "done our homework", but was speaking in reference to taking on the tournament's top wicket-taker Wanindu Hasaranga.
Ireland did attack the Sri Lankan legspinner and he had his most expensive 50-over outing against them, but also took five wickets. And in short, that has been the story of Ireland over the last 18 months or so. They've pushed big teams and big players as they tried to play what Malan called "a brand of cricket that's exciting", but in big moments, they've fallen short. It doesn't get bigger than a World Cup qualifier.
In the moments after the defeat that will keep Ireland away from India, Malan was at a loss to explain how or why they had got there but the tone of his voice revealed that he knows he will have more people to answer to than the scant media presence in Bulawayo. "It's been a tough week or so and very disappointing," he said.
"I don't think there is one piece where we've been poor, there's a couple of pieces. It will take some time to sink in. We've got to be better in most areas. I don't think we've come close to playing the way we've wanted to play over the last three games. It's tough because there's a lot of emotion going around."
Malan was appointed on a three-year contract last January and began work in March but has so far overseen a string of poor results including 17 losses in 25 T20Is and four out of four Test defeats. Asked about his own future, Malan gave nothing away. "In international cricket you always feel pressure. It's a tough place to be at times. We'll be better off for this once the dust settles."
The bigger question is if Irish cricket as a whole will be.