Cricket Ireland have confirmed that the men’s team will play a three-game T20I series with the United Arab Emirates and a match against Scotland as part of their preparations for the upcoming T20I World Cup.
The fixtures were officially announced by the Emirates Cricket Board this morning as part of the ‘DafaNews Summer T20 Blast’ – a series of fixtures between 5-10 October also involving UAE, Scotland, Namibia and Papua New Guinea.
Warm-up matches against Papua New Guinea and Bangladesh are also set to be played on October 12 and October 14 respectively.
The side’s T20I World Cup campaign is set to begin on October 18 against the Netherlands.
They most recently played a three-game One Day International series with Zimbabwe earlier this month.
Graham Ford and his squad will leave for the UAE tomorrow and will undertake a mandatory six-day hotel quarantine before being able to begin training.
A preliminary 18-player squad was recently announced – this will be reduced to 15 for the T20 World Cup tournament.
However, the three other players will still travel to the UAE as reserves.
Squad
Andrew Balbirnie (c), Mark Adair, Curtis Campher, Gareth Delany, George Dockrell, Shane Getkate, Graham Kennedy, Josh Little, Andrew McBrine, Barry McCarthy, Kevin O’Brien, Neil Rock, Simi Singh, Paul Stirling, Harry Tector, Lorcan Tucker, Ben White, Craig Young.
Fixtures
Pre-T20 World Cup – preparation period
• 5 October 2021: Ireland v Scotland – warm-up match (ICC Academy Oval 2; start 9am local time)
• 7 October 2021: Ireland v UAE – 1st T20I (ICC Academy Oval 1; start 9am local time)
• 8 October 2021: Ireland v UAE – 2nd T20I (ICC Academy Oval 1; start 9am local time)
• 10 October 2021: Ireland v UAE – 3rd T20I (ICC Academy Oval 1; start 9am local time)
Official T20 World Cup warm-up matches
• 12 October 2021: Ireland v Papua New Guinea – warm-up T20I (Abu Dhabi; start 2pm local time)
• 14 October 2021: Ireland v Bangladesh – warm-up T20I (Abu Dhabi; start 6pm local time)
T20 World Cup – Round 1
• 18 October 2021: Ireland v Netherlands (Sheikh Zayed Cricket Stadium, Abu Dhabi; starts 10am GMT)
• 20 October 2021: Ireland v Sri Lanka (Sheikh Zayed Cricket Stadium, Abu Dhabi; starts 2pm GMT)
• 22 October 2021: Ireland v Namibia (Sharjah Cricket Stadium, Sharjah; starts 10am GMT)
