While Scotland’s cricketers continue to traipse around the English county circuit, adding fresh tales of what might have been to an already-bulging manuscript, their counterparts in Ireland are gearing up to discover whether their application to earn Test status with the ICC will be successful.

The two Celtic nations have diverged sharply over the best way to proceed, now that professional contracts are on the table, but although the Saltires have earned one victory – from five matches - in the Clydesdale Bank 40 competition, the feeling persists that the Irish have shown greater vision by electing to sit out this event and focus, henceforth, on being a country, rather than a province of Britain.

Certainly, when one discusses the issue with Cricket Ireland’s dynamic chief executive, Warren Deutrom, the principal message which comes across is that the associate members of the ICC seriously need to formulate five-year and 10-year plans, instead of bumbling along from season to season.

“Because we have a lot of county cricketers in our first XI, we often found that we were playing professional teams with a mixture of first choice and A team players, and were usually on the wrong side of beatings,” declared Deutrom yesterday.

“With only a growing appreciation of the sport in this country, it was tough to explain to irregular viewers how Ireland could record wins over countries on the world stage one day, yet lose to English counties the next. Given that the Friends Provident Trophy matches did not attract crowds anyway, we were not really losing out financially or in terms of profile and if we had any intentions to aspire to elevation in the world game, it was important to be regarded as a country, rather than just a satellite of England, who were being defeated regularly in one of their domestic competitions.”

These comments are equally relevant to Scotland. As anybody who has turned up at the Citylets Grange recently will testify, attendances have fallen dramatically from the time when Rahul Dravid plied his trade with the Saltires, back in 2003.

Of course, with the Scots missing out on next year’s World Cup – unlike Ireland – the authorities here require as many revenue streams as possible. And yet, there is something in Deutrom’s case which provides a compelling counter to Scotland sticking with the status quo.

“We accept that we are not ready for Test cricket at this stage. But we do believe that we are ready to be considered for the other benefits of full membership, especially inclusion within the Future Tours Programme and automatic entry to ICC events, having reached the Super Eights of two of the last three world events. One day, we would like Ireland to participate in full Test cricket, although we know that won’t happen within the next few years, and I think that it is only right that we have to go through a programme of regular testing against the Full Members in the shorter form of the game. I am sure some of them consider that Bangladesh and Zimbabwe were elevated to the Test circuit earlier than they might have been. But I think we have made our decision with the best information available and the next step now is that the ICC Board will consider our application once their Governance Review Committee has concluded its review of our processes.”

That verdict will occur during the next couple of months and will determine whether the Irish have argued their case persuasively enough. Yet, whatever transpires, their strategy is surely a better one than clinging to the coat-tails of the counties in perpetuity?

PLAYER OF THE WEEK – HASSAN AKRAM (Weirs): The youngster has never been short of talent, and demonstrated his powers on Saturday as the Glasgow club defeated SMRH in the SNCL Division 2 clash. Akram, opening the batting, struck an impressive knock of 107 – his maiden century in the competition – and that proved the catalyst for his club to post a convincing 75-run victory over their inter-city rivals.

WATCH OUT FOR: A clutch of cracking Scottish Cup across the country next Sunday. The pick is Carlton’s meeting with Clydesdale – in what will be a star-studded occasion, featuring the likes of Fraser Watts, Ross Lyons and Qasim Sheikh – but West Lothian v West of Scotland and Heriots v Aberdeenshire should also be thrilling ties.