Ireland shortlist 14-player squad for the first ODI against England

After the completion of ‘raise the bat’ Test series against West Indies, England cricket will host Ireland for the three-match One-Day International (ODI) series beginning from Thursday (July 30) at the Ageas Bowl in Southampton.

It will be the first series for Ireland cricket team post coronavirus outbreak which stopped all the cricketing actions around the world in March early this year. Cricket Ireland (CI) has announced the 14-men squad for the ODI series opener in Southampton.

CI has a travelling squad of 22 players, but it has only picked a 14-member team with a window which can bring in any of the eight reserve players to subsequent matches.

“These ODIs are not only a great opportunity for our squad to test themselves against the world champions but are extremely important in the context of qualification for the 2023 Cricket World Cup. Every player in our squad is lacking game time as a result of the lockdown, so the two warm-up games gave the players an opportunity to gain their first competitive action since early March, and there were some very positive performances on display over those two matches,” said Andrew White, Chair of National Men’s Selectors.

“However, our deliberations on selection took into account not only those two warm-up games but also form shown earlier in the year before lockdown. In addition, we also took into account that we have a larger squad here than would be normal, so we decided on a side for the first game only at this point. This means that the eight players who miss out on this playing squad may still have an opportunity to feature in the series,” he added.

This Ireland team will have relatively young Irish players who are yet to showcase their talent at the international stage. Some players are those who have appeared for Ireland in the international T20 side but haven’t yet played an ODI game.

“One notable inclusion for Irish fans is Curtis Campher, who has been called up to the Ireland senior squad for the first time. Curtis has impressed selectors and coaches with both his batting and bowling, played very well for the Ireland Wolves against Namibia in February, has trained well in recent weeks and provides a great balance to the side. Fans saw a little of what he can offer during the intra-squad match last Wednesday, and we believe he’ll be ready to step up if called upon.”

“Another exciting one for Irish fans is Harry Tector, who comes into the reckoning now to make his ODI debut. Harry has already featured in 20 T20 Internationals for Ireland and has demonstrated during warm-up games and in training that he is ready for this format of the game. His half-century on Sunday was against an excellent attack, and demonstrated maturity in his batting for a player so early in their career,” Andrew added further.

Andrew also explained the reason behind the omission of Mark Adair, Ireland’s leading wicket-taker last year. He said that while Mark underwent a successful surgery but he is still not fit enough to represent Ireland at the international level.

“Many players on this trip can consider themselves unfortunate to miss out in the first matchday squad, including our leading wicket-taker in 2019, Mark Adair. As fans are aware, Mark underwent surgery earlier this year, and while that was successful, it has unfortunately meant that he is not yet back to the level that we need him at for international cricket. We know that he isn’t far away, but we also need to recognise that Sunday’s game was his first competitive outing since the Caribbean in January,” concluded Andrew.

Here is the Ireland squad:

Andrew Balbirnie (c), Paul Stirling (vc), Curtis Campher, Gareth Delany, Josh Little, Andrew McBrine, Barry McCarthy, Kevin O’Brien, William Porterfield, Boyd Rankin, Simi Singh, Harry Tector, Lorcan Tucker, Craig Young.

Here are England versus Ireland ODI series fixtures: