Ireland has announced that they have decided upon the players who would be comprising the 14-players squad that will be playing the premier match of the ICC Cricket World Cup Super League (2020-2023). The match will be played on the 30th of July 2020 in Southampton and Ireland will be facing the 2019 World Cup champions, England that would be captained by Eion Morgan.
A 14-player squad will be selected for every match so that the teams can make an efficient substitution as per the requirements. 22 players will be touring Southampton. The selectors have rolled out the names of the 14 players today that would be playing on Thursday.
List of the 14 players to feature in the debut match:
• 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
The team is in high spirits to make a comeback after a considerable long-pause. Andrew White, Chair of National Men’s Selectors, said, “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 allowed the players to gain their first competitive action since early March and there were some very positive performances on display over those two matches.”
Notable selections in the squad include Curtis Campher and Harry Lector. The selectors gladly chose Campher impressed by his dynamic performance in the Ireland Wolves against Namibia game in February this year. According to them, the player has been training supremely well and is ready to take the bull by the horns. Lector would be making his ODI debut during this tournament after making his mark in the T20 format.
However, some important dropouts would upset the fans. The Irish fans would seriously miss watching Mark Adair play for the team. He was the leading wicket-taker for the team last year.
On not being able to consider Adair for inclusion in the team, White said, “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 recognize that Sunday’s game was his first competitive outing since the Caribbean in January.”
It will be the inaugural year of the ICC Cricket World Cup Super League which will serve as a qualifier for the teams to make it to the 2023 World Cup that would be hosted in India. The tournament will see the participation of 13 teams, 12 full-time ICC members, and the Netherlands, who made it to the competition by winning the 2015–17 ICC World Cricket League Championship. A three-match ODI series will be played among the teams, in which every team will be playing against eight other opponent teams, four matches in the home ground, and four away.
