Inside Fingal Cricket - Tyrrelstown Cricket Club

Welcome to a new segment on the Cricket Leinster website looking inside cricket in Fingal.

This is an opportunity for clubs and individuals in Fingal, to share their development news, in particular as the country moves towards the start of the new cricket season in April.

The first club to feature is Tyrrelstown Cricket Club, whose Chairperson, Kumar Varma Rudraraju will give us an insight into how the club has come through the pandemic and is building towards an exciting 2021.

Address: Tyrrelstown Park, Dublin 15
Website: https://tyrrelstowncricketclub.com
Email: tyrrelstowncricket@gmail.com
Phone: 0866061655
Primary Contact: Kumar Varma Rudraraju (Chairperson) - tyrrelstowncricket@gmail.com

For those reading about Fingal cricket for the first time, we would like to give you some background on the club, based in Dublin 15, which is a relative newcomer to Leinster cricket, established in 2011, catering for men, women, and children from Tyrrelstown and surrounding areas.

From starting as a cup team, renting grounds, trying to make the club succeed, to by 2017 entering the lowest league of the Leinster league pyramid, gaining rapid promotion up the pyramid, to 2019, having the then Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar T.D., open the club’s new ground at Tyrrelstown Park, thanks to financial support from Fingal County Council and Cricket Leinster.

The pandemic has of course checked the progress of all in Leinster clubs, and Tyrrelstown Cricket Club was unable to play at home and could have faced a season without any cricket. But, as Kumar was quick to acknowledge, 2020 was a year of the cricket community rallying behind the club:

“Cricket Leinster has played a very key role in the Tyrrelstown Cricket Club (TCC) growth since its inception. But the kind of help TCC got from CL in 2020 was phenomenal and we owe a lot of our success in 2020 to the efforts of Brian O’Rourke and Simon Dyke. They made sure we played all our games, despite not having the facilities to host games at home because of COVID regulations, by arranging alternative venues within the Leinster cricket community, to whom we say thank you for hosting us, and we will always be proud to return your support when you need any”.

In this context, Cricket Leinster would like to acknowledge in particular the support provided by Ringcommons Cricket Club in making their ground available on a number of occasions for ‘Tyrrelstown’ fixtures.

Playing in 2020 was an achievement in itself for all clubs in Fingal given the pandemic, the second and third waves since the season concluded in September demonstrates how challenging beating the virus continues to be. As club Covid officer Stuart Youngson explains, it is a testament to all cricket partners in Fingal coming together, designing and then crucially delivering safe cricket with no COVID cases, proof of a formula for delivering cricket in challenging times.

“Cricket Leinster delivered COVID training, signage, sanitizing products and clear guidance on protocols to all clubs to ensure cricket training and matches could return safely for all players and officials. TCC played 20 games (between 3 teams) in the 2020 season and no Covid-19 case were reported. This explains how meticulously Cricket Leinster & Fingal County Council planned & executed the games during the 2020 season”.

You can feel the positive energy when we asked Club Secretary Srini Karpe about development goals for Tyrrelstown. It is also where you appreciate once again that for Tyrrelstown, being a cricket club is not measured by wins and trophies, but by how you support your local community.

2020 did expose some weaknesses in their infrastructure and ultimately meant the club could not host games. For Karpe, this is “our number one area to address, as the club must be able to host games in our local community and for our local community to attend. We have our list of requirements and will be liaising with Fingal County Council and Cricket Leinster on their support to ensure TCC becomes the best facility possible for Tyrrelstown”.

Our talk illustrated the extent to which infrastructure challenges are impacting on the big ambition at Tyrrelstown Cricket Club. Karpe added “we have been waiting for more facilities like storage, practice pitches and toilet access on our ground at Tyrrelstown Park. These are mandatory to encourage youth and particularly girls teams and this is where we have very ambitious goals, to provide a facility that is open to the whole community to use”.

When asked where do you want to be in 12 months time, his comment sums up the TCC spirit. “To have upscaled the ground, be able to be back playing in our local community, engaging them in healthy activities, becoming stronger as a community facility, able to turn 40 juniors into 200. There is great interest in cricket in the Tyrrelstown, Blanchardstown, Ongar, and surrounding areas which we need to be maximizing. But, TCC cannot achieve this by itself, it needs help, and we know in Cricket Leinster and Fingal County Council we have two of the biggest supporters of our goals”.

When we passed this segment to Fingal County Council, it was pleasing to receive a request from Niall McGuirk, FCC senior sports officer, to be allowed to respond to the club’s comments and is published below:

“I am delighted to see this segment being created by Cricket Leinster, and to read about TCC’s tremendous commitment to keeping cricket going in 2020, through what we can all agree was unexpected and unprecedented challenges. I would therefore like to give them, and the Fingal community, some positive news as the 2021 season draws ever close. We are in talks with Cricket Leinster regarding TCC’s requests, and other, broader TCC development plans. I believe these will show everyone that support for Tyrrelstown is strong from Fingal County Council”.

Editors comments:

It is always enjoyable to hear from Kumar and Srini about all the work going on at Tyrrelstown Cricket Club. They remind you of how a dream can become a reality, that a driven club can always find solutions, even when, on occasions, they cannot use their home ground.

Fantastic to have Fingal County Council asking to put in a quote, to showcase to readers this segment is being acknowledged by the Council and we are working hard in Fingal trying to develop cricket further. Clubs like Tyrrelstown keep us busy. But it is a pleasure to be so, where you see such a community first message and I am sure the announcements forthcoming from Fingal County Council will mean this is not the only time Tyrrelstown features on our ‘Inside Fingal Cricket’ segment.

B O'Rourke
2021