Do Ireland look ready to qualify for a World Cup?
A difficult week in Bangladesh, culminating in a 3-0 series defeat, has set back Ireland's upward trend
Ireland completed the ODI portion of their tour of Bangladesh with a seven-wicket defeat on Monday. The final scoreline reads 3-0 in favour of the hosts.
Akin to Saturday’s second ODI, again Ireland won the toss and batted. They were bowled out for 185 despite a promising start which included a half-century for Gaby Lewis (52), her first since taking over as full-time captain. Bangladesh chased it down for the loss of just three wickets in the 38th over, a convincing margin of victory.
Ireland’s unfamiliarity with the spin-friendly conditions offers a caveat but, after the success of the summer, suffering a whitewash appears to put a halt on this side’s upward trend. For now.
Development is never linear, but given Ireland have hopes of qualifying for an ODI World Cup, the flaws of this series suggest significant improvements in a number of areas need to happen quickly. The qualifying event, yet to be announced, is set for spring/early summer 2025. In terms of remaining matches, Ireland have three ODIs against India and whatever pre-qualifier warm-up games take place to right their current wrongs.
There are three more T20s set to take place on this tour, the first on Thursday. Yet given the importance of the 50-over format in the coming months, here are the talking points which illustrate where Ireland currently stands.
Regression to the big three
Much has, and will continue to be made of Ireland’s big three batters: Lewis, Orla Prendergast and Amy Hunter. Wins against Sri Lanka in the summer suggested that Ireland’s reliance on these was diminishing; runs from Rebecca Stokell and Leah Paul got them over the line in a number of big wins.
Those runs dried up over the last week in Dhaka. The big three made contributions, Lewis and Hunter both passing 50 at different points, but they didn’t bat their way to match-winning hundreds. It’s unfair - and unsustainable - to expect them to do so in every series.
While making 50s instead of 100s still took Ireland to totals approaching 200, they never looked like scoring enough to win one of the three games. The scores which were needed from other batters were lacking. The reliance grew once again.
Batting in the middle order, Paul scored 19 runs in three games. Una Raymond-Hoey, given an extended run in the team after a number of years in Australia, scored 34 runs across the series, albeit she was not out in the second ODI. Opening the bating, Sarah Forbes fared marginally better with 43 runs in three innings. Laura Delany was the best of the rest, scoring 55 runs in two games before being left out for the finale.
Even when Ireland’s top batters do fire, in 50-over games where big totals are more often than not required, these returns won’t cut it.
What’s the solution? Stokell, who notched five single figure scores in a row after her half-century against Sri Lanka in the summer, wasn’t picked in the ODI squad for this tour. Christina Coulter-Reilly, the current bench bat, has only played two ODIs.
Personnel changes seem unlikely to dramatically improve things given the form. Backing the incumbents, giving them a run against India and hoping one or two start hitting 20s and 30s instead of single-figure scores is likely the best that can be hoped for now.
The other option is to change approach.
Across this series, the team which won the toss batted first (Bangladesh once, Ireland twice). Clearly, the morning was seen as better for batting, given the conditions. In as much as they can without being stupid, Ireland probably need to discount this type of thinking for the next six months.
In a qualifying event where pretty much every game will need to be won, if Ireland don’t have confidence in their batting line-up and don’t have the required personnel to make improvements, they will need to make life as simple as possible for those players - if any - who are in form. The big three, and anyone else able to contribute, should walk out to bat knowing exactly how many runs they need to score. That can only be done when batting second.
Certainly, that adds a degree of risk if that necessitates working against the wisdom of what conditions offer. But if Ireland’s batting line-up remains this imbalanced, do they have a choice?
Plans
Ireland will be sick of the sight of Fargana Hoque and Sharmin Supta, Bangladesh’s opener and number 3, who scored 383 runs between them. They looked a class above what Ireland had to offer on this occasion; for a variety of reasons, but what stood out most of all was their approach.
Time and again, Supta in particular, these batters played strong shots down the ground to capitalise on the fielding restrictions. Ireland, by contrast, went with a sweep-heavy approach against Bangaldesh’s spinners. There were times when this paid off, a gorgeous reverse sweep from Hunter stood out from Monday’s game, but not enough to justify the risk. Forbes, Hunter and Prendergast were all dismissed sweeping.
All told, 13 of the 30 Irish wickets fell LBW or bowled. Bangladesh bowled straight with the field up, but Ireland couldn’t make them pay down the ground.
Not always from a lack of trying. Prendergast in game one and Raymond-Hoey in game three were both caught at mid-on. But watching this week was reminiscent of the South Africa series in 2022. Then, there were times when the Proteas would go an entire innings with mid-on staying inside the ring, such was Ireland’s inability to play over the top. That was the beginning of the post-Covid era of this side. Now, two and a half years on, they’re supposed to be a better-rounded team, capable of taking on the sight screen as well as playing square of the wicket. That ability hasn’t disappeared, but, when under pressure, they went into their shells.
Ireland have had success in recent months when being brave, by taking on strong shots all around the park. Looking to sweep wily spinners with no other boundary option is just asking for trouble.
Spin, spin, spin
Apart from a handful of wickets for Aimee Maguire today and Freya Sargent in game one, Ireland’s spin attack, as things stand, does not look capable of bowling them to a World Cup. In helpful conditions, they did not offer sufficient threat, nor did they bring any degree of control which might at least have led to scalps down the other end. Granted, Maguire impressed during the summer against England. There is clearly some ability.
Today, Ireland brought leg-spinner Cara Murray back in for just her second game since May. She looked like someone who hasn’t bowled regularly at this level in recent times, offering up a pair of double-bouncers.
Ireland have a decision to make, and it looks like it’s already been made. Maguire and Sargent have been identified as their best spinners. Both are U19 and will go to an underage World Cup in January, offering them more games to develop. Will that tour, combined with the India games, be enough to bring them up to speed?
For what it’s worth, Ireland’s seam attack was no great shakes. But there are enough people there with track records of success to avoid pushing the panic button yet. The spinners don’t have that experience base.
We’ll have to wait and see what happens. Akin to the concerns surrounding the batting line-up, Ireland don’t have the personnel required to simply chop and change. They need to work with what they have. For this week at least, it wasn’t enough.
Preparation
Compared to plucking international-ready players out of thin air, this is something Ireland should be better able to control. When you look at a side which suffered five run outs in three games, started the series with a number of poor fielding lapses, struggled in foreign conditions and had a fast bowler in Prendergast who looked to be bowling with a limit on her overs, it becomes clear that Ireland were underprepared.
Which is understandable. Indoor training wearing woolly hats in North County will never offer sufficient preparation for the sub continent.
The concern, though, is that Ireland were better prepared for this series than they will be against India in January. Hunter, Maguire and Sargent all got decent outdoor cricket on a recent U19 tour of South Africa. Lewis was in Australia playing club cricket. Prendergast ran out in the Big Bash, arguably the best professional domestic league in the world.
Between now and India in January, how much outdoor training time will Irish players see?
All of which begs the question, how do Ireland ensure they are better prepared for a qualifying event where winning and losing actually matters? The first step would be to find out where those games will be, since the ICC has not made any announcement. The UAE is always a good bet.
Cricket Ireland are not ignorant of the issue. Prior to the T20 World Cup qualifiers last May, they asked Sport Ireland for an extra €68,070 to fund a warm-up camp, including three games. They ended up playing twice against Thailand, as well as the official ICC-funded warm-up matches. Ireland hit the ground running in that campaign and looked odds on to qualify until a six-over spell from hell against Scotland.
One can only hope the funding is there to best prepare the side for any qualifiers early next year, to avoid a repeat of what just happened in Bangladesh. Graeme West, the new head of high performance, is currently travelling with the side. He’s had first hand experience of what not to repeat.
What was said
“Ireland captain Gaby Lewis on the third ODI: “We lost wickets at crucial points throughout our innings. But there are still positives to take. Little partnerships here and there that maybe could have taken us on but we lost wickets at crucial periods.
“Every game we adapted a bit better. We’ll aim to bring stuff forward that we learned in this series into the T20s. We adjusted well with the bat and we know what works well with the ball.”
What’s next
The T20 series starts on Thursday. The games remain on YouTube, thankfully starting at a much more sociable hour of 8am Irish time.