Cricket Ireland has announced 14-member squad for the upcoming two-match home T20I series against the no.3 T20I ranked team India. The matches will be played on June 27 and 29 at The Village, Malahide.
The no.17 T20I ranked team Ireland is looking to provide a fighting cricket against the dominating Indian side. In the T20I cricket history, they met only once and that was in the 2009 ICC World T20 Group A game at Nottingham where India comfortably won by 8 wickets with 15 balls to spare.
32-year-old Gary Wilson, who led the Irish T20I side in the recently concluded T20I tri-nation series between Scotland, Netherlands and Ireland, will continue to lead the squad in the upcoming T20I matches against India.
The Chairman of National Men’s Selectors for Cricket Ireland, Andrew White said about the squad, “The selectors have chosen what we believe to be a strong, in-form squad for this format of the game that balances experience with youth. Our deliberations were around finding a side that was competitive now, but with an eye to the future.
“Many in the squad will be either travelling to Sussex this weekend for the Ed Joyce Testimonial match on Sunday, or will be re-joining the senior squad from their English County sides. We had a good look at a number of players on the recent Tri-Series in the Netherlands and this weekend’s match in Sussex will firm up the decisions made on the final playing eleven for the first fixture on Wednesday.
“We will continue our approach of providing opportunities for a wider pool of players to gain experience in T20 cricket on the international stage. With around 12 months to go to the World T20 Cup qualifiers, we are looking to build a competitive squad for that qualification stage and hopefully to propel us into the main tournament in 2020.”
Ireland’s 14-man squad: Gary Wilson (Captain), Andrew Balbirnie, Peter Chase, George Dockrell, Josh Little, Andrew McBrine, Kevin O’Brien, William Porterfield, Stuart Poynter, Boyd Rankin, James Shannon, Simi Singh, Paul Stirling and Stuart Thompson
