Ireland have a busy summer with 15 matches to be played.
It’s the 22 October and Paul Stirling and his team are trooping off the Sharjah Cricket Stadium having succumbed to a shock defeat to minnows Namibia at the Men’s ICC T20 Cricket World Cup.
In spite of typical bashing performance from Stirling who cracked 38 runs off 24 balls, Ireland’s World Cup is over before with the African rank outsiders cruising to an eight-wicket victory with nine balls to spare.
But with cricket, a chance for redemption is never too far away and with the next T20 Cricket World Cup already on the horizon in November in Australia, Stirling says the team are relishing the opportunity to get back out on the world stage after the disappointment of the 2021 tournament, highlighting the need for a consistent run of games as crucial to how Ireland performs.
“I think we were actually on a bit of roll before Covid hit. We were building into quite a nice team. Covid hit and we lost a bit of that progression. I think the more T20 we play, the more we realise who our best players are.
“Our pool of players isn’t the same as England. I think we need to have our best 11 players on the park, identify who they are two months before the tournament and go on and give it a good crack. I think it’s no more complicated than that.”
The summer schedule certainly grants the Irish captain his wish of more action out in the middle with Ireland playing some 15 matches (12 T20s and 3 ODIs) against India, New Zealand, South Africa and Afghanistan. He contends that it is a huge period for Irish cricket.
“We start with the two T20s against India. [They are] Massive games for us to see where we are.
“We don’t necessarily come back from a break too well going by past experiences so those two games will show exactly where we are, hopefully building up to what is an important stage for us in Australia come November.
“We have a couple of ODIs in between which is developmental for our youngsters coming through in the 50 over stuff but T20 is key for us going forward.”
Speaking from Abu Dhabi, the 31-year-old was in the UAE capital coaching youngsters at Abu Dhabi Cricket’s Spring Smash Masterclass Camp alongside England Eoin Morgan.
The Belfast-born international is no stranger to cricket in the country having opened the batting for Team Abu Dhabi in the Abu Dhabi T10s last year as well as doing battle with the UAE’s national team at the recent qualifiers for the T20 Cricket World Cup and he says their improvement has been impressive.
“The structure is in place. They’ve got a coach, Robin Singh, who has been there for last three, four years who implements the basics. They seem to be doing the basics very well.
“We played against them recently and they are not making a lot of the mistakes you would assume they would make at the time in the game and they haven’t done it.
“They are taking longer, taking [games] further, not throwing their wickets away and not letting us back in the game. They’ve actually dominated and you see those differences over a period of time which has been about a year to two.
“It has been a drastic improvement. I think if they keep improving that, they have got the infrastructure here to be as good as they want to be.”
