Cricket
Within a month of landing in Ireland for a change of scene, Auckland Hearts all-rounder Arlene Kelly was shocked when he was called up to the Irish cricket side to play six games against South Africa. She tells Kristy Havil what it meant to family both here and there.
At the end of the cricket summer in New Zealand, Arlene Kelly felt the wind of change in the air.
It was her 10th season representing her beloved Auckland Hearts, and arguably the toughest of them all – both the Hearts men’s team and Auckland Aces had endured a summer heavily interrupted by Covid.
Kelly also lined up for a promotion at work.
But deep down she knew she was looking for something different instead of another winter juggling her constant work and cricketing commitments.
So, in March, she had a talk with her Northern District opponent, Ireland international Eimear Richardson, about going to play on the Emerald Isle for a season. Then Kelly was decided.
The 28-year-old has an Irish passport as her mother and all four grandparents are from Ireland, so it was an ideal opportunity to move on and connect more with family she hasn’t spent much time with (or even met) before). And she could play a little cricket at the same time.
A few phone calls later, she was locked up to play for Malahide Cricket Club. So she quit her job as a key account manager at a personnel company and packed her bags.
When she boarded a flight to Dublin in early May, Kelly had no idea how much her world was about to change.
Fast forward a month, and Kelly cuts an excited, but relaxed and slightly incredulous figure talking to LockerRoom.
“To be honest, I’m still in my head about it,” Kelly says with a big grin on her face.
Just two days before our interview, Kelly got her debut T20 cap for Ireland for the first game of a three-game home run against South Africa.
From then on, her day only got better, as she took two wickets in Ireland’s win over the Proteas.
“It was surreal, a very special day,” she says. “It was only the second time that we beat South Africa in a T20.
“The coolest thing for me to come in fresh was the belief the team had from the start. We stayed in it the whole time, which gives everyone a lot of confidence.”
It had never occurred to Kelly to go to Ireland earlier in her career and try to crack the national side.
Kelly has been a mainstay in a very successful Auckland team since she made her debut in 2012, winning four one-day competitions and one T20 title.
Her best bowling figures in both formats for the women in blue is 4-28 in a T20 game against the Central Hinds, while also having the honor of scoring 110 against the Northern Spirit.
Making the White Ferns has always been an ambition as I have spent time in training camps with the New Zealand side over the years†
“But again, I’d tried never to have expectations about selection – I’ll do my best, and if that meant being selected for New Zealand then that’s great,” she says.
“The special thing is that wherever I need to be, I can take what I’ve learned through that experience and that path, and share it here.”
Her words reflect her calm and collected approach to life, and she shared the same mindset when it came to putting on the Irish shirt.
“There was no expectation, nor any pressure to play for Ireland,” she says. “I knew I was eligible, but cricket has taught you a lot over the years that in sport you can never expect anything.”
So how did she go from not even being on the Irish selectors’ radar, to becoming a frontline member of their bowling attack so quickly?
Within a week of landing, Kelly was ready for the Dragons in the 2022 Super Series, Ireland’s domestic competition.
Against her first opponents, the Typhoons, Kelly scored in a 50 over 60 run match and took three wickets. Understandably, she had allowed Irish voters to sit more straight in their seats.
While the head honchos at Cricket Ireland would have preferred her to stay a little longer and get a little more cricket under her belt before bringing her into the fold, injuries from other players and a busy exam period meant that Kelly received an unexpected phone call .
A week later she was in camp with Ireland and a few days later she got her first international cap.
Kelly can be forgiven for still trying to wrap her head around the whirlwind she’s in. Needless to say, it was a special day for Kelly and her family as she made her debut at Pembroke.
Her parents and brothers eagerly watched the live stream at home in New Zealand in the wee hours of the morning, proud as a punch when Kelly was rewarded for years of hard work and dedication with an international cap.
“They know how much this means to me and how excited I was for the opportunity, and were just excited to see that I got the chance to play the sport I love and have been working on for far too long now,” she says.
When asked if her Irish family contingent is there to watch in person, Kelly chuckles heartily.
“The family here is still working on what cricket really is,” laughs Kelly.
“Obviously it’s not as common here as it is in New Zealand, but the family WhatsApp group was definitely pinging – one of my cousins came to watch, however.”
Growing up with the sounds of God Defend New Zealand drumming inside her, there was the awkward prospect of the Irish national anthem to negotiate. Kelly knew, but had to turn to a reliable source to make sure she had it before match day.
“There’s a lot of rugby at home where the Irish national anthem is played, so I was familiar enough with it,” she explains.
“Did I listen to it on Spotify to make sure I knew the words? Of course I did.”
Ireland then lost the T20 series 1-2, as the South Africans got out of second gear and got up to speed. Kelly played in each of the three matches and took another wicket in the second T20.
But the good news kept coming. Kelly was then rewarded for her promising T20 series with her debut one-day international (ODI) cap in the first of three ODI games against South Africa that followed.
She has played in all ODIs (South Africa won all three) and now has her first ODI wickets, 2-40 in one match.
The ODI series marked Ireland’s first matches after being announced as one of two new teams (Bangladesh the other) in the 2022-2025 edition of the ICC Women’s Championship (IWC). That is a qualifying tournament that runs from now until 2025 to determine the automatic qualification for that year’s ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup.
Teams finishing in the top five of the ICC Women’s Championship will immediately secure a spot for the World Cup, while sixth place is reserved for the hosts. The other four teams are then determined in the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup qualifier.
While the Irish may be out of it to take one of the top five spots, it’s the promise of regular cricket against high-quality opponents that excites the players.
Each team in the championship is guaranteed to play eight three-game series over the next three years – four at home and four away.
It’s far more than Ireland has played in the same period in their history, and it offers regular opportunities to take on the world-class teams and players.
As well as currently hosting South Africa, they also welcome England, Australia and Sri Lanka to their shores, and travel to Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and the West Indies for their away matches.
Combine that with Cricket Ireland investing €1.5 million (NZ$2.5 million) in women’s football by 2022 – tripled from pre-pandemic years – including 20 contracts for the players and more full-time coaching resources, and you get it. sense of the future for Ireland on the world stage is bright.
“The girls are really looking forward to the opportunities ahead of us,” Kelly says.
“They’re a professional unit now, they want to learn and develop and this is their chance to do that.”
Kelly’s stay in Ireland will last until September, but her plans to return to New Zealand for another domestic summer are still not set in stone. It could, of course, depend on how things go with her new national team.
Ireland will host a T20 tri-series at home next month with Australia and Pakistan, which may give her another chance to solidify Ireland’s plans for the future.
When asked if she will be home in time to dress in blue again and add up her tally of over 150 games for the Auckland Hearts, she is very clear: “Your guess is as good as mine.
“I’d like to follow the sun for a while, but we’ll see what happens. The way it all turned out, I’m here for it.”