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Ireland begin the run in to their ICC Women’s World Twenty20 Qualifying tournament tomorrow when they play Pakistan in two Twenty20 matches in Birmingham.

The World Cup Qualifier will be hosted in a number of grounds around Dublin including YMCA, Merrion, The Hills and Malahide. The dates and times of fixtures can be found here.

Pakistan have played England four times in the past week in Loughborough, twice in ODIs and twice in Twenty20s. The home side cruised to two relatively easy victories in both the 50-over matches and crushed Pakistan in the first Twenty20, but in the final match, the visitors recorded a first ever victory against the English, winning by just one run defending 116.

The Pakistanis toured Ireland last year when they won both an ODI and Twenty20 match against the Irish, but Ireland coach Jeremy Bray hopes that his team will be able to turn over the visitors.

“We played against Pakistan last year and were well beaten in both forms of the game, but we have worked hard over the winter thinking that we would have to beat both Sri Lanka and Pakistan to qualify for the Twenty20 World Cup next year,” he said.

“We focused on facing spin and having a few different options for the same ball so that girls’ won’t get bogged down. The team are looking forward to our first foray into the short form of the game this season tomorrow and though we will be looking to win the matches, we will see it very much as an opportunity to try a few things out and hammer down our game plan.

Pakistan are in Group A in the qualification tournament which begins on July 23rd along with The Netherlands, Thailand and Zimbabwe while Ireland are in Group B. The other countries in the home team’s group are Sri Lanka, Japan and Canada.

Up until last weekend there was just one spot in the 2014 ICC Women’s World Twenty20 up for grabs from this month’s competition. From the 2005 Women’s World Cup to the 2009 edition, the number of teams competing shrank from 10 to eight. The top six finishers from the 2012 ICC Women’s World Cup automatically qualified for Bangladesh 2014 with two more teams coming out of the Qualification tournament.

Bangladesh are hosting the tournament and therefore receive one of those two spots leaving teams like Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Ireland just one spot to fight for. However, all eight teams taking part in Dublin later this month were given fresh hope of playing at the highest level when it was announced after the ICC Annual Conference last weekend that there would be three teams from this tournament going to Bangladesh 2014.

Ireland Captain Isobel Joyce was delighted when she heard the news. “With just one spot up for grabs it was going to be very tough to qualify. Now, with another two spots available, our hopes have been redoubled and the team can’t wait to get going.

“We enjoyed the news for a few days but as soon as we got together again for training, all anyone could think was that we still need to win most of our games to make it to Bangladesh and everything for the month is going towards that.

“July is chock full of cricket for us with these matches in Birmingham, County Championship matches next weekend and then more games against Pakistan next week in Ireland. So while we’re excited to be playing more fixtures and playing in tournaments like these it will be important to look after players and we will be without some players at times due to work commitments.”

Cricket Ireland
Kim Garth will hope to play a big part for Ireland with both bat and ball
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