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Tour squad announced

Ireland Women's squad named for South Africa tour

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DUBLIN – The Ireland Women’s squads to travel to South Africa in December for a six-match white-ball series have been named, with 19-year old spinner Aimee Maguire returning to the senior set-up for the first time since receiving ICC clearance for her remodelled bowling action.

Maguire’s return (see story) is welcome news for the squad, the left-arm orthodox spinner has taken 25 wickets in 20 matches (across formats) with a best of 5-19 against England.

In further welcome news, seam bowling all-rounder Georgina Dempsey has returned after a lengthy injury lay-off. Dempsey last appeared for Ireland in January, however, missed most of the home domestic season with injury.

The average age of the squad is just over 24 years, however, the squad have an increasing wealth of experience to draw on – four of the squad have over 100 caps across formats (Delany, Lewis, Prendergast, Paul) and two more (Murray, Hunter) may reach three figures on the tour.

This will be the first time the two sides have met since 2022, when South Africa toured Ireland.

Overall:

T20Is: 13 played – South Africa won 11, Ireland won 2
ODIs: 20 played – South Africa won 18, Ireland won 1, one no result

Graeme West, Director of High Performance, said:

“2025 has been a fantastic year for the squad, newly appointed Head Coach Lloyd Tennant oversaw a successful summer with series‘ wins against Zimbabwe and Pakistan, followed up with progress from the regional T20 World Cup Qualifier winning all six games in the process. The South Africa tour represents a further test of the team’s development and provides great preparation for the all-important T20 World Cup Global Qualifier in January, some fine-tuning of game strategy and team composition will be critical objectives for the tour.

“While the tour will be challenging, 11 of the players in this squad were at the T20 World Cup in South Africa in 2023, so they have some familiarity with many of the grounds they will be playing at.

“The return of Aimee Maguire is welcome news to all Irish cricket fans, and to see Georgina Dempsey in action once again is a lift for everyone, it will be great credit to both players resilience that they are back and ready to go.”