Cricket Ireland announces final squad for 2011 ICC World Cup
The mega event will be played between fourteen cricketing nations of the world and will be jointly co-hosted by three South Asian countries, India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, starting from February-19 to April-2.
The Squad:
Ireland has been adjusted in Group B for the 2011 World Cup.
Bangladesh, England, India, Netherlands, West Indies and South Africa are the other co-members of Group B and will be travelling to Dubai on January-28 for a World Cup training camp.
Ireland’s warm-up matches have already been scheduled with New Zealand and Zimbabwe in Nagpur before their first regular match against Bangladesh in Dhaka on February 25.
The World Cup squad is as follows:
William Porterfield (c), Andre Botha, Alex Cusack, George Dockrell, Trent Johnston, Nigel Jones, Ed Joyce, John Mooney, Kevin O’Brien, Niall O’Brien, Boyd Rankin, Paul Stirling, Albert van der Merwe, Gray Wilson(wc), and Andrew White.
The four non-travelling reserves are, Allan Eastwood, Andrew Poynter, Craig Young and Regan West.
William Porterfield is excited about being given the opportunity to lead his country, 'We've been waiting for this time to come around now for a while and I know the squad are just looking forward to getting out to Dubai and on to India and Bangladesh”, he said.
Ireland’s squad included nine players, who had assisted in the previous World Cup when Ireland defeated former world champions, Pakistan, by 3 wickets, and sent Pakistan crashing out of the tournament.
Coach Phil Simmons liked the team balance and commented about the experience of the team members already had before. “This squad contains a lot of experience with nine having played in the 2007 competition - I am sure that is more than most teams”, he said.
"I like the balance of the squad. As with most Irish teams of the past few years, there are quite a few all-rounders, and that gives us plenty of options in all departments". Ireland’s coach went on to say, "What is different this time, from 2007, is that 13 of the 15 earn their living from cricket - that's practically a full-time squad”.
The spin-bowler, George Dockrell, along with Middlesex's Paul Sterling, will be amongst those, who will be playing the World Cup for the first time. However, the one noticeable omission regarding the WC Squad is Regan West, who hasn’t played for Ireland in the last few months because of tenacious injury problems.
Addition of Edmund Christopher Joyce in WC squad:
Ed Joyce played the last of his seventeen One Day Internationals for the English team in 2006-07 Ashes series and 2007 ICC World Cup.
The left-handed batsman and a medium pacer, Joyce is widely regarded as one of the best cricketers Ireland have ever produced. He has played for Ireland several times around 1997-2005.
Ed is hoping to put forth his previous performance, when he played for England and reached the Super Eights, beating Bangladesh and Pakistan.
The 32-year-old, during the 2007 World Cup had scored 75 against Kenya and 66 while he played against Canada, although he got out, and just scored a single run in the match against Ireland.
Averaging 27, he wasn’t given the chance again to play for England’s team because of the upsetting elimination from the Super Eights.
Despite having played for England in a World Cup before, the Sussex batsman was named in the Ireland World Cup squad, to continue his international cricket from the Irish side.
