Cricket Ireland has announced a series of two-day matches in late April that will feature centrally-contracted players, Inter-Provincial contracted players and several Academy players. The two matches will provide an opportunity for selectors to cast an eye over the squad before the panel sits down to select the first Test team.
The news of the two new matches comes off the back of the unfortunate news that the Ireland Wolves pre-season trip to England for matches against Bath CC and Gloucestershire 2nd XI has been cancelled by the hosts due to persistent bad weather and waterlogged grounds.
The announced inter-squad matches will be played on 23-24 April 2018 (at Merrion Cricket Club) and 26-27 April (at Pembroke Cricket Club).
Richard Holdsworth, Director of Performance at Cricket Ireland, said:
“We’ve put on the matches as a means of giving our players some crucial outdoor cricket in the lead up to the Test in May. The two-match series will allow players to bat and bowl using the Duke ball, which will be a new experience to most as we have played with the Kookaburra ball at Inter-Provincial level for the last decade.”
“With a hoped-for improvement in the weather, the matches will allow some decent practice having had the best part of two days washed out in Somerset and now losing the four Wolves matches that were planned for this week.”
Confirmation of team selections will be announced in the coming week.
Two new practice matches have been announced.
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