Ireland skipper Ciara Metcalfe excited about ICC Women's Cricket Challenge
With less than a week left behind in the ICC Women's Cricket Challenge, Ireland’s women cricket team is all set to fly to South Africa to play against five other nations ranked from 5 to 6 on the Reliance Mobile ICC Team ODI ranking’s table. Besides Ireland,
other five teams that would participate in the tournament include hosts http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755.
The tournament is scheduled to kick start on 6th of this month in Potchefstroom, South Africa. The opening match of the tournament would be played between Ireland women and Pakistan women. The ICC Women's Cricket Challenge is the first tournament
of its kind to be played on a round-robin format in which all the participating sides will face each other in One Day Internationals and T20.
The Irish women would start the tournament as No. 9 on the team rankings’ table. It is a great chance for the Irish women to improve their rankings, as matches against sides ranked higher than them are few and far between.
Stephen Moreton, the newly appointed interim coach of Ireland women’s team has termed the upcoming tournament as a great opportunity to assess their performance relative to others ahead of the Women’s World Cup Qualifiers. When asked about his aim for the
tournament, Moreton said that he does not want to push his team to go for upsets in the tournament; rather he wants the team to take the tournament as a vehicle to achieve something on the international arena.
Ciara Metcalfe will be leading the Irish women in the ICC Women's Cricket Challenge after the regular captain http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Heather-Whelan-c62138 had stepped down from her role at the end of the summer. Whelan is on a break from international cricket to focus on her work and
family life. http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Metcalfe-c75689 was more than willing to take over the vacant post of captain.
The incumbent skipper of http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Ireland-c751 was quite excited about the Women’s Cricket Challenge and said that she cannot wait anymore for tournament to start. Ciara Metcalfe said that the main objective of the team during its trip to South Africa would be to develop
team chemistry, while winning some fixtures there would be really great for the side.
Ireland side usually plays in two and three match series so playing five ODIs and three T20 matches during two week tour might be a difficult challenge for the side. When asked from Ciara Metcalfe, she said that it would not be their greatest challenge in
the upcoming tournament rather handling with the power and athleticism of tough sides like hosts South Africa and http://www.senore.com/Cricket/West-Indies-c760 would be quite tough for the inexperienced Ireland side.
Ciara told the media reporters about the tough training sessions on the form and fitness of players and opined that the hard work of the side would be shown in the ground. She further added that they had learnt their weaknesses while they were playing against
Black Caps and England in July and have put in a lot of work to overcome those weak points. “The challenge for us now is to continue on that upward curve and to translate all that hard work onto the pitch and into our performances," the Ireland skipper said.
The 31-year-old leg-spinner revealed that the ultimate aim of the side by is Qualification for the next Women’s World Cup. World Cup Qualifying tournament will be held in http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Bangladesh-c747 next year, and the Irish team can make it to the world cup by sealing any
of the top two spots on the points table of the World Cup Qualifying tournament. Ciara said that the upcoming ICC Women's Cricket Challenge is a kind of pre-tournament challenge for the team to learn its weak points.
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