Dublin: Cricket Ireland (CI) on Wednesday awarded their five senior players part-time professional contracts and new non-retainer contracts to 11 women players.
CI introduced professional contracts for the first time in 2019, with six players Laura Delany, Kim Garth, Shauna Kavanagh, Mary Waldron, Gaby Lewis and Celeste Raack signing part-time terms last April. The same six players were offered deals for 2020, but Garth turned her contract down in order to sign with Cricket Victoria instead.
"The newly introduced non-retainer contracts are a further step on the road to a professionalised women's game. However, as a boost to the women's game, there has been an increased investment through a new category of non-retainer contracts covering the rest of the senior performance squad," the Irish cricket board said in a statement.
Non-retainer contracts: Eimear Richardson, Lara Maritz, Louise Little, Rebecca Stokell, Una Raymond-Hoey, Hannah Little, Leah Paul, Orla Prendergast, Sophie MacMahon, Cara Murray and Louise McCarthy.
"We are pleased that we can further invest in the senior women's squad through these new benefits contracts. Given the nature and profile of our players, we needed to provide a greater level of support and service to the fitness, health, conditioning and, most important, access to services that they need year-round. The medical and healthcare coverage alone will provide some peace-of-mind to the squad, and we hope to continue to build on these in subsequent years," said Richard Holdsworth, Ireland's performance director.
"Despite these contracts being in place for several months, we had to delay the public announcement of women's contracts until after the Kim Garth situation was concluded. Given the uncertainty over the impact of the pandemic and the rescheduling of the World Cup Qualifier, we will delay a decision on how to invest the residual funds. The funds may be able to provide additional contact hours with the players or additional warm-up preparation and matches, for example, once we know the timing of the Qualifier," he added.
