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England tour might still go ahead if logistical challenges are met

ESPNcricinfo staff14-May-2020Ireland’s men will not play a full international fixture this home summer, after Pakistan and New Zealand’s scheduled tours were postponed at a virtual board meeting on Wednesday.Warren Deutrom, Cricket Ireland’s chief executive, remains hopeful that the three scheduled ODIs against England can go ahead in some form, but said that “numerous challenges [still] have to be resolved” which “will take a little while to work through”. This will be the first Irish summer since 2005 not to feature a full international.New Zealand’s entire European tour has now been postponed, with the scheduled fixtures against Scotland – an ODI and a T20I – also canned following the recent postponement of the planned matches in the Netherlands.”We deeply regret that we can’t provide any international cricket at home to our fans this year, but we were always up against it with our entire home international programme coming in the first half of the season,” Deutrom said.”It had become fairly obvious following the recent series of Government announcements in the Republic and UK that the New Zealand series was not feasible. While of course it’s disappointing for the fans in Northern Ireland who I know were looking forward to the visit of the World Cup runners-up, given the circumstances we entirely understand NZC was left with no choice but to stay at home.”David White, NZC’s CEO, said: “These are extremely difficult times for international cricket and we feel deeply for our friends in the northern hemisphere, whose season has been so badly disrupted. Hopefully, in brighter and less dangerous times, we can return and play the games that have been postponed.”Gus Mackay, Cricket Scotland’s CEO, said: “We are obviously disappointed that New Zealand’s European tour has been postponed, however, it was to be expected under the current circumstances. We will work closely with New Zealand Cricket and look at opportunities in the future when they are next touring Europe.”Pakistan’s two T20Is in Ireland, scheduled for mid-July, were due to take place immediately before their tour to England. Deutrom said that complications regarding government timelines, bio-security, quarantining players and finding a window to fit in around the England series meant that it “just hasn’t been possible to find a way to get the matches played”.ALSO READ: Cautious PCB open to possibility of summer tour of EnglandWasim Khan, the PCB’s CEO, said: “We fully respect and endorse Cricket Ireland’s decision at this difficult time. As we have all reiterated, the safety and security of players, officials and fans comes first. The PCB stands firmly with CI in these difficult times and we look forward to revisiting Ireland again as soon as normal services resume.”Regarding the three-match ODI series in England, initially scheduled for mid-September, Deutrom said that Ireland would “try to be as flexible as possible”, but admitted “numerous challenges have to be resolved” regarding dates, bio-secure venues, and quarantine requirements. “We will continue to work with the ECB on trying to make these fixtures happen, but the issues involved will take a little while to work through.”Deutrom also confirmed that no firm decision has been made regarding the Euro T20 Slam, which was due to start this year after its inaugural season was postponed in 2019. A final call will be taken next month, but with all cricketing activity in Ireland suspended until June and the game feeling the financial strain of the pandemic, it appears unlikely that the competition will be able to go ahead.

With Mark Wood in line for a recall in Paarl, there may only be space for one Curran in the England side

Matt Roller28-Nov-2020Tom Curran’s bowling figures – 1 for 55 in four overs – in Friday night’s game against South Africa were the sixth-most expensive in England’s T20I history. But at least none of the five men above him in that list had to walk off alongside their grinning brother after he had taken three cheap wickets.”Tom’s very competitive and is a relaxed guy, so he’ll move on pretty quickly,” Sam said after England’s five-wicket win. “T20 is a very strange game. You can bowl well and still get hit for a lot of runs, and you can bowl badly and get loads of wickets.”But in truth, Sam bowled well, and Tom bowled poorly. While Sam managed to disguise his variations, change his lengths and nail a hard length, Tom was taken to pieces in his second over by Faf du Plessis and ended up leaking 24 runs as he strayed into the slot.The upshot is that if England decide to inject Mark Wood’s pace in Sunday’s game at Paarl, it is likely to be Tom rather than Sam that makes way. If that seems unsurprising, it is evidence of the effect that the IPL has had on Sam’s reputation as a T20 player: Friday night was only his sixth T20I appearance and his first in over a year.It is quite a reversal. While Sam’s first exposure to professional cricket was in Surrey’s T20 Blast side, he has generally been considered to be the slightly better red-ball cricketer, while Tom was ahead of him in the white-ball pecking order. Now, Tom has not played a first-class game since April 2019, and is arguably a less attractive proposition in limited-overs cricket, too.Sam Curran bumps fists with Tom after England’s intra-squad warm-up – in which the younger brother dismissed the older•Getty Images

That is not to say that he has undergone any major decline. Eoin Morgan, England’s white-ball captain, evidently has faith in him, deciding to give him two powerplay overs and continuing to back him at the death even after du Plessis’ onslaught.It is worth noting, too, that he spent much of the IPL sitting on the Rajasthan Royals bench, so was not match-fresh in the way most of his team-mates were. He will return to the Big Bash League with Sydney Sixers after this tour, for whom he has played some of his best cricket, and is likely to remain very much in the England reckoning.In contrast, Sam – in recognition of his lengthy stints in the biosecure bubbles this summer – will return home after the T20I leg of this tour is complete. That speaks volumes of the strides he has made and his importance to the England set-up across formats. He received glowing reviews during his time at the IPL with the Chennai Super Kings – captain MS Dhoni labelled him “a complete cricketer” – and said that he had taken his game to “a different standard” at the tournament.ALSO READ: A victory for England, and a victory for the IPLWhile his bowling caught the eye in Friday’s series opener, Sam’s three-ball innings with the bat was just as entertaining. After being hit on the grille by a Lungi Ngidi bouncer, the first ball he faced, he lined up Kagiso Rabada to smite his second for six over long-on – evidence, perhaps, of his mischievous streak.That Sam has caught up with Tom so quickly should not come as a surprise: tennis fans, for example, will note the relative successes of the Williams and Murray siblings (in both families, the younger sibling is the superstar). There is a sociological explanation for ‘the sibling effect’, in which younger siblings enjoy more success than their older siblings, rooted in their early exposure to regular sport, the need to keep up, and psychological rivalry. As Tim Wigmore and Mark Williams write in their book : “If you have a younger sibling, they are probably better at sport than you are.”That seems to fit in the example of the Currans: Sam’s emergence as a T20 allrounder puts his brother’s England place in jeopardy. When Jofra Archer has been unavailable through injury or rest, Morgan has backed Tom Curran and Chris Jordan as their death-overs specialists, but Archer’s presence in this series means both seamers need to prove their versatility.With Wood – or Reece Topley, the tall left-armer who last played a T20I in the 2016 T20 World Cup – in contention as England look for extra pace with the new ball, there may well be room for only one Curran in this side. Sam’s advantage with the bat and his new-found ability to bowl in all three phases of an innings means that Tom finds himself looking over his shoulder.

Players found picking up ball against white seats “tricky” in warm-up game

Matt Roller24-Jul-2020Ireland have flagged an unusual problem with playing behind closed doors ahead of their three-match ODI series against England next week, after their fielders struggled to pick up the white ball against the backdrop of empty cream-coloured seats in an intra-squad practice match.All three games in the series will be played at the Ageas Bowl, where Ireland and England have been staying since last week. While empty stands did not cause major issues for fielders in England’s Test against West Indies at the ground last month, Ireland’s players found it difficult to see the white ball against the light seats.”The thing that’s a little bit of a concern is the background,” Graham Ford, Ireland’s head coach, said in a virtual press conference on Friday. “The seating is either cream or white, and you’ve got a white ball and an empty stadium, so that background for fielders might be a challenge.”Andy Balbirnie, Ireland’s captain, said that he hoped extra sessions will prepare his fielders for the challenge. “It does take a bit of getting used to, but we’ve got a week of prep and we can make sure that we hone that, and make sure that guys are comfortable and almost getting their eyes in while fielding,” he said. “It can be tricky: a white ball on cream and white seats will be tricky, but we’ve got enough time to make sure we can’t use that as an excuse.”All three games are day-night matches, meaning it will likely only be a problem in the first innings. ESPNcricinfo understands that the ECB has no plans to add dark covers to the seats, and will instead rely on fielders being able to adapt. Hampshire have played a number of one-day games at the ground with only a limited number of fans present.Meanwhile, Ford has laid down a marker for Ireland in saying that it is not enough for them to simply give England a scare. “We’ve certainly shown in the previous ODI at Malahide and in the Test match [last year] that we can give them a fright,” he said. “But that’s not what we want to do: we want to be winners.”There are a few little elements we may have to work on – a few things we might to able to see in terms of the psychological side of it and the pressure they’ve got. It’s a potential banana-skin game for them: they can’t afford to lose to us, and they’ll take a lot of flak if they do.”There’s a few little issues of, perhaps, egos, and things that we can work on, but I wouldn’t want to talk about the things we want to exploit in the media. The most important thing is that we put good basics in place.”Getty Images

Balbirnie admitted that there was “no doubt” that Ireland were “going in as underdogs”, but said that with key players like Jos Buttler and Ben Stokes absent on Test duty, England could be vulnerable if they lost early wickets.”Those two in the middle order have been standout players for England over a number of years,” he said. “They’ve got a really strong top order, and against these big teams early wickets are vital, no matter who you’re playing.”In the first game of the series, it’s a statement if we can take early wickets and really set the ball rolling, but they’ve got a really strong squad here. They’ve played as many games as we have this summer, so we’re going in with a clean slate, and hopefully we’re building momentum nicely towards that first game.”Balbirnie said that he was confident Ireland would be able to cope with the challenge posed by England’s two main spinners, Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid, on a relatively slow wicket with big square boundaries. Balbirnie said he had been doing his homework, checking the type of player who has been successful in Hampshire’s one-day games at the ground, and thought that taking pace off the ball would be crucial.”One of the benefits of playing Afghanistan so often [is] you get the opportunity to play against world-class spinners on a regular basis. You learn different things, and learn how to play them in different scenarios. As a squad, we tend to play spin pretty well.”One bowler who may prove crucial to Ireland’s hopes in the series is Josh Little, the 20-year-old left-arm seamer who took 4 for 45 on ODI debut against England last year. England’s batsmen have generally struggled against left-arm seamers in recent years, and Ford said that Little would “certainly be very close” to inclusion for the first ODI.”It’s no good just picking somebody because the opposition have a perceived weakness against that type of bowling,” Ford said, “[but] he’s gone quite nicely. I’d like to see him just step it up a little bit, but it’s nice to know we’ve got that sort of variation to our attack. He’s a really exciting prospect.”Ireland have one more warm-up game to prepare ahead of the first ODI on July 30, against an England Lions XI that will include Eoin Morgan, who was rested for England’s intra-squad warm-up on Friday. They are set to be without Mark Adair for the series, who is yet to bowl at full intensity in training, but Ford is hopeful that Paul Stirling will be fit after missing the intra-squad game with a calf niggle.

Farbrace recruits veteran seamer and reliable allrounder for 2024 season

ESPNcricinfo staff22-Jun-2023Chris Wright, Leicestershire’s veteran seamer, will join Sussex from the start of the 2024 season on a two-year contract, with Lancashire allrounder Danny Lamb also making the move to the south coast.Wright, who turns 38 next month, has claimed 567 wickets at 32.30 in a 196-match first-class career that has spanned 20 seasons. His best innings figures of 7 for 53 came against Gloucestershire at Bristol in 2021.He will be available for all formats for Sussex, having picked up 174 domestic white-ball wickets in his career. This season, he has found a strong vein of form with the bat as well, averaging 56.8 in 10 innings in the County Championship. This includes twin scores of 66 not out and 40 not out in a memorable win against Yorkshire at Headingley.”I am delighted to be joining Sussex for the 2024 season and beyond,” Wright said. “I have long admired the club and am looking forward to contributing to its future success.”Speaking to Paul Farbrace [head coach] and having played against the team a number of times I am excited to be joining such a talented and ambitious group. Hopefully, I will take lots of wickets and provide some valuable experience to the team.”Farbrace added: “I’m delighted that Chris has committed the next two seasons to joining our project at Hove. He is a vastly experienced cricketer who will bring skill, experience, and a huge passion for the game.”Chris is someone I have admired for a long time, and his quality with the ball will be fantastic for our developing team and will help us to win matches.”Sussex will be the fifth county of Wright’s first-class career, following earlier stints at Essex and Middlesex, as well as a successful period at Warwickshire between 2011 and 2018, where he helped win the County Championship in 2012.Related

• Sussex close in on victory to cap a season of awkward progress

• Paul Nixon leaves post as Leicestershire head coach under 'mutual agreement'

• Leicestershire 'investigating allegations' amid Nixon's sudden departure

• Yorkshire bring Moriarty in as Championship spin cover

• Paul Nixon relieved of duties as Leicestershire head coach

Lamb, meanwhile, joins on a three-year deal. “I’m extremely excited for the opportunity,” he said. “A brilliant new challenge and one which I feel has come at the right stage in my career.”I’ve always enjoyed playing against Sussex and at Hove. I like what Sussex are about and the vision for the future with Paul Farbrace at the helm of a young ambitious squad. I can’t wait to get going and I look forward to contributing to the team in all formats.”Mark Chilton, Lancashire’s director of cricket, said: “Danny has found first-team opportunities limited over the last couple of years, so we completely understand the decision he’s made moving to Sussex. We wish him all the best for the next stage of his career.”A medium-paced allrounder, Lamb has an impressive record across formats but has struggled for game-time at Lancashire this year and has recently been playing for Gloucestershire on loan.

Sunrisers made 277, the highest ever total in IPL history, and Mumbai, just as incredibly, fell only 31 short

S Sudarshanan27-Mar-20241:43

Moody: Head set the tone, and Sunrisers just didn’t look back

Sixes were being hit for fun. Runs were flowing at a breakneck pace. You wouldn’t be blamed for thinking you were watching a video game. The carnage in Hyderabad resulted in an 11-year-old IPL record falling, RCB’s seemingly insurmountable total of 263 from 2013 falling by the wayside thanks to a breathtaking, collective show from the Sunrisers Hyderabad batters. They notched up the highest total in the 16-year history of the IPL – 277 for 3 – but then, just as incredibly, Mumbai Indians almost paid them back with the same coin, their batters coming out with a nothing-to-lose attitude. Eventually, they ran out of steam and finished on 246 for 5, the highest IPL total in a losing cause.Travis Head set the pace on the night, striking an 18-ball half-century, the fastest for SRH in the IPL. His record lasted roughly four overs, Abhishek Sharma slamming a 16-ball fifty to relegate him to No. 2. An hour after that, Heinrich Klaasen cut loose to seemingly bat MI out of the contest. But the sixes kept rolling off the Mumbai bats too, helping them keep up with the asking rate for most of the chase, eventually falling only 31 short.Related

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• Stats – Sunrisers break record for highest ever IPL total

Never were more runs scored in a men’s T20 match (523). Never were most sixes hit in a men’s T20 (38). At the end of the close to four-hour six-fest, only two bowlers returned with an economy rate of under ten an over.

The perfect Head-start

Head, in for Marco Jansen, continued from where he had left off on his previous tour of India. He was off the mark with a four off IPL debutant Kwena Maphaka, the 17-year-old who played for South Africa at the Under-19 World Cup earlier this year. Head was given a life when Tim David dropped him at mid-off off Hardik Pandya’s first ball. But there was no looking back from there.Head smacked two fours and two sixes in a 22-run Maphaka over before hitting two fours and a six off Gerald Coetzee in an over that went for 23 to end the powerplay. Head had scored 59 of the 81 SRH made in the first six overs. In his next over, though, Coetzee bowled a short and wide one, which the batter could only carve to deep backward point.

Abhishek shows his mettle

Head’s inclusion in the XI meant Abhishek had to move down the order, and he walked in at No. 3 after Mayank Agarwal fell in the fifth over. Abhishek got going with a pull off Coetzee and then meted out a special treatment to the legspin Piyush Chawla, hitting him for three sixes in an over. That helped SRH notch up their 100 in just seven overs, their second-fastest in the IPL.Abhishek also tore into Maphaka’s third over, hitting him for a sequence of 4, 6, 6, 4 to complete his fifty and snatch the record from Head. The key was how early he picked the length of the bowlers. He hit seven sixes in his 23-ball stay for 63 runs, before heaving a half-tracker that Chawla fired in seam-up at 112.8kph straight to deep midwicket.Heinrich Klaasen hit another rampaging half-century•AP Photo / Mahesh Kumar

Klaasen, Markram add finishing touches

With nine overs to go and two right-hand batters in the middle, Hardik Pandya sensed an opportunity to get left-arm spinner Shams Mulani in the game. That played into the hands of Klaasen, though, who is a spin-basher. In T20s since January 2022, no batter who has faced at least 500 balls had a higher strike rate against spin than Klaasen’s 174.38 before the start of the game.True to form, he smacked Mulani over long-off to get his rhythm going. Klaasen then hit a six each off Hardik and Jasprit Bumrah as SRH crossed 200 in the 15th over. Aiden Markram, at the other end, hit a six and a four but was happy to give the strike to his South Africa team-mate. Klaasen brought up his fifty off 22 balls, which was only the third quickest on the night.Klaasen hit two successive sixes in the last over bowled by Mulani to take Sunrisers past RCB’s record score. SRH added 63 in the last four overs to post the fourth-highest total in all men’s T20s.

Mumbai lose their fizz

Rohit Sharma and Ishan Kishan kicked off Mumbai’s reply in fine fashion. Rohit muscled Bhuvneshwar Kumar down the ground before hitting Jaydev Unadkat – brought in for T Natarajan, who had a niggle – for back-to-back sixes. Kishan meanwhile took 23 off Bhuvneshwar’s second over, hitting him for a four and three sixes. Kishan then slogged Shahbaz Ahmed to deep midwicket, but Rohit kept going.He whipped Pat Cummins’ second ball over midwicket before miscuing a pull to fall for 26 off just 12. Only twice in the IPL has Rohit scored more – 37 in April 2015 vs RCB, and 27 in May 2015 vs Chennai Super Kings – off the first 12 balls he faced.Naman Dhir and Tilak Varma also kept Mumbai abreast with the required rate. They found boundaries regularly, with Tilak leading the charge, and added 84 off 37 for the third wicket. But once they fell within 21 balls of each other, MI lost momentum. David managed to hit a few into the stands, but by then it was too late.

England have sent the back-up plus Joe Root to take on an Ireland side who missed the boat for India

Andrew Miller19-Sep-2023

Big picture: Back to the margins

It’s no slight on the visitors, honest. But here we are again, all the same. Just as Ireland opened England’s international season at Lord’s back in June, with a contest so translucent that both teams found themselves peering straight through it towards more pressing matters beyond, so they have returned at this fag-end of the English summer, with the narrative once again marching off into the middle distance.Back in June, the focus for the two squads was England’s Ashes bid on the one hand, and Ireland’s 50-over World Cup qualification campaign on the other (and we’ll come back to that sorry saga in a moment). Now? It’s just cricket for the sake of cricket.Three ODIs that, when they were first added to the schedule last year – before the BCCI had got round to finalising any dates for the World Cup – had been intended to form part of both teams’ final preparation for the main event in India next month.Instead, Ireland dropped the ball with calamitous finality in Zimbabwe, losing each of their first three qualifying games to crash out at the group stages. Then England torched any pretence of remaining relevance by extracting each of their World Cup-bound players from the reckoning – with the honourable exception of Monday’s late addition, Joe Root, whose form across 50 overs has gone from non-existent to troubling in the space of four ropey displays against New Zealand.All things considered, therefore, this contest could – at a pinch – have more relevance four years down the line. That’s already the distant target that Heinrich Malan, Ireland’s coach, has urged his players to build towards, notwithstanding the more immediate target of the T20 World Cup in the USA next summer, at which Ireland will be present after a significantly better showing in this year’s other qualifying event in Edinburgh.But for England too, with a backlog of outstanding white-ball cricketers itching for an opportunity on the international stage, there’s relevance to be found on an individual basis this week, even if the three matches are destined to be forgotten amid a deluge of main event action in October.We’ve been here before (sort of) in England’s recent history. Two summers ago, at the height of the Covid crisis, Ben Stokes – himself in recovery from a broken finger – led a scratch team of county stars in three matches against Pakistan, after the entire frontline squad had been sent into isolation following an outbreak.They won the series handsomely, three emphatic wins to nil, with one especially familiar name seizing his chance for white-ball honours. Zak Crawley, England’s Ashes Bazballer extraordinaire, is now captain of this rejigged squad, having played his only three ODIs in that Pakistan series (including an unbeaten half-century on debut).Ben Duckett, Crawley’s Test opening partner and now vice-captain, was named in that squad too but didn’t play. Now, he’s unquestionably one of the players with designs on a reserve role at the World Cup, as are Brydon Carse and Will Jacks – two other players with the proven pedigree to thrive given half a chance. All things considered, therefore, there will be plenty to play for this week… just not, at this juncture, anything of immediate consequence.

Form guide

England WWWLL
Ireland WWWLL

In the spotlight: Joe Root and Curtis Campher

“A nice addition” is how Ireland’s coach described Joe Root’s late call-up to England’s squad, for a one-off appearance on his home ground of Headingley, before getting his head back down in preparation for the main squad’s departure for India next Wednesday. He’s into the reckoning in place of Harry Brook, whose own response to a low-key performance against New Zealand has been to hunker down and visualise the better times that came before it (and hopefully afterwards too), now that he’s been preferred to Jason Roy in those World Cup plans. Root, however, is a more mechanical beast than his colleagues, and still has some last-minute tinkering to be done as he readjusts to the rhythms of the 50-over game after a year on the sidelines. In particular, he seemed bothered by his inability to rotate the strike against New Zealand, and lacked faith in the Root-scoop that had served him so well in Bazball. Surely nothing he can’t surmount, but it’s indicative of England’s overall lack of preparation for their title defence.Leaving aside his mighty exploits with the ball – four wickets in four balls at the 2021 T20 World Cup will take some beating – most of Curtis Campher’s finest moments in international cricket have come from the middle-order. He made a brace of half-centuries in his maiden ODI appearances on Ireland’s last white-ball visit in 2020, and after making a first Test hundred from No. 7 in Galle, he saved his best yet for Ireland’s moment of crisis in Bulawayo this summer, a superb 120 from 108 after coming in at 33 for 4 against Scotland. In the end it wasn’t quite enough in an agonising one-wicket defeat, but at the age of 24, the time has come from him to stop being the “rescue act”, as coach Malan put it, and start setting the team’s agenda from No. 3.

Team news: Root’s cameo takes precedence

All change from the New Zealand series, with the exception of the No. 3, as a host of England players with genuine aspirations jostle for the chance to star in the absence of the big guns. Phil Salt – a T20 World Cup winner in November – seems likely to start with the gloves, despite the close attentions of Surrey’s rising star Jamie Smith, whose chance may come when Root has had his net, and will probably open alongside Jacks, whose versatility as an opener, auxiliary spinner and general purpose power-hitter makes him a very tempting option as a World Cup reserve. Crawley and Duckett will slot into the middle-order, having opened in the Test against Ireland in June. On the bowling front, Carse has another chance to enhance his deck-hitting attributes, while Rehan Ahmed is self-evidently Adil Rashid’s legspinning heir apparent. Three more outings at the age of 19 can only bed him in further. Sam Hain is the likeliest of England’s four potential debutants to get a go, but at least two will feature.England: 1 Will Jacks, 2 Phil Salt (wk), 3 Joe Root, 4 Zak Crawley (capt), 5 Ben Duckett, 6 Sam Hain, 7 Rehan Ahmed, 8 Brydon Carse, 9 Tom Hartley/George Scrimshaw, 10 Luke Wood, 11 Matthew PottsStirling is Ireland’s stand-in captain, having taken over from Balbirnie after the World Cup debacle. How long he remains in the role is for Cricket Ireland to decide, but the two senior men will be leading their team in every sense, in their new partnership at the top of the order. Seeing as each made a hundred in a memorable 329-run chase at the Ageas Bowl three years ago, it feels like a safe pair of hands. Campher slots in at three, ahead of the rising star Harry Tector and the keeper Lorcan Tucker, while George Dockrell showcased his powerful ball-striking during Ireland’s series against Bangladesh at Chelmsford in May. On the bowling front, Josh Little’s left-arm pace offers a genuine point of difference.Ireland: 1 Paul Stirling (capt), 2 Andy Balbirnie, 3 Curtis Campher, 4 Harry Tector, 5 Lorcan Tucker (wk), 6 George Dockrell, 7 Andy McBrine, 8 Mark Adair, 9 Barry McCarthy, 10 Craig Young, 11 Josh Little

Pitch and conditions

It’s late September in Yorkshire, so let’s not get our hopes up… there’s a weather warning in place for Wednesday and the omens are not entirely promising. The outfield has been drenched with rain over the last few days and Yorkshire are desperately hoping that it dries out in the next 24 hours. It’s been under covers non-stop, so you’d imagine some assistance for the seamers will be in the offing. The club reckon 14,000 tickets have been sold, but there will doubtless be a few gaps in the stands.

Stats and trivia

• Ireland have won each of their last two white-ball fixtures against England. At the T20 World Cup in Melbourne last October, they prevailed by five runs on DLS after England misjudged the pace of their chase with rain looming at the MCG.
• However, at the Ageas Bowl in August 2020, it was a far more emphatic display. Stirling led the line with 142 from 128 balls, as his 214-run stand with Balbirnie powered Ireland to a seven-wicket win.
• Overall, England have won ten and lost two of their 12 completed ODIs against Ireland, dating back to their first meeting at Belfast in 2006. Aside from Southampton, the one that got away was a whopper – Ireland’s incredible World Cup win in Bengaluru in 2011, powered by Kevin O’Brien’s 50-ball hundred.

Quotes

“Obviously having Joe in the team makes it stronger – no matter what team you’re in. It’s great having him, especially for me as captain. I can lean on him with that kind of stuff as well, so that’s awesome. Hopefully he gets what he wants out of it.”
Stand-in England captain Zak Crawley is looking forward to leading a side which features his old Test skipper, Root“What are we crying out for is just more consistent cricket. Everyone’s playing at the World Cup, and we won’t be part of that this time around, so that makes us more hungry when we get these opportunities to play quality opposition at quality grounds..”
Heinrich Malan, Ireland’s coach, wants his players to focus on the international opportunity, irrespective of England’s distractions