Delany wants Ireland to own the field playing 'their style of cricket '
Ireland women will take on Sri Lanka at home in a white-ball series, beginning 11 August.
Laura Delany-led Ireland will take on Sri Lanka in a T20I series comprising two games, before playing three ODIs against them. The latter will be a part of the ICC Women’s Championship, where Sri Lanka are at the fifth position in the standings, whereas the hosts are in the 10th place.
Delany was confident of Ireland putting up a good show ahead of the series.
“I think as a squad we’ve improved hugely over the last 12 to 18 months, and we’ll be going out there on Sunday to put it in practice,” Delany told the reporters.
Ireland failed to make it to the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2024, after losing to Scotland in the semi-finals of the Qualifiers earlier this year. However, Delany didn’t see the loss as a setback, believing that the same style of play had brought success to Ireland.
“I think as a group we’ve shown that we want to play aggressive and fearless nature [of cricket], and at times, you’ll cop the other end of the stick, and you’ll get out for not many runs. And as a squad, we certainly faced that challenge against Scotland.
“We want to play the style that we know we can play. And when we play that style of cricket, we will beat the likes of Australia, which we did in the [Women’s T20] World Cup [2023] warm-ups. A couple of years ago, we beat South Africa at home and we’ve won a series against Pakistan.”
“It’s sticking to our strengths, and knowing that if we play that style of cricket, then hopefully we come up on the other side.”
Looking over to the Sri Lanka series, Delany stated that while star batter Chamari Athapaththu was the main challenge, she was also aware that the Asian side wasn’t as heavily dependent on the southpaw as before.
Athapaththu, who will be unavailable for the T20Is due to her commitments with Oval Invincibles in the Women’s Hundred, will join the team for the ODIs.
“We know Chamari Athapaththu is the key player for them. But when you look at their batting lineup, and how they’ve played over the last four-five games, they’ve had a number of players contributing.
“We know there’s not just one or two players in their side, that we’ll have to look out for. We expect a very competitive game.”
T20I series schedule:
11th August, 1st T20I, Pembroke, Dublin
13th August, 2nd T20I, Pembroke, Dublin
ODI series schedule:
16th August, 1st ODI, Stormont, Belfast
18th August, 2nd ODI, Stormont, Belfast
20th August, 3rd ODI, Stormont, Belfast