Cricket Ireland on Monday confirmed the dates and venues of 11 men's home international fixtures for 2020. The side will have a top-level cricket action ever with Bangladesh, New Zealand, and Pakistan visiting the country to play bilateral series. "There is no doubt that this will remain one of the biggest home seasons for Ireland, with the hosting of the number one T20I side in the world, and the runners-up at the most recent 50-over world cup," Warren Deutrom, Chief Executive of Cricket Ireland said.
Four remaining fixtures are still to be allocated and will have dates and venues confirmed in January due to venue negotiation currently underway - these are the T20 Internationals against Bangladesh, scheduled to be played in late May 2020 following the ODI series with that country.
"However, this has also undoubtedly been our most complex match allocation process ever, given the multiple challenges we are working through. Chief among these is the loss of access to one of our international grounds for at least 2020, with Clontarf undergoing extensive renovations," Deutrom said.
"With this venue loss, we have been reduced to 12 pitches available across our three remaining international grounds that need to cater for 15 matches. Given the ICC's high standards of expectation regarding pitch quality, this has influenced several of the match allocations. Also, key to our deliberations has been the need to provide a high volume of white-ball cricket given the T20 World Cup in October and the start of the World Cup Super League," he added.
The four T20Is scheduled to be played against Bangladesh in the second half of May could end up being hosted outside of Ireland, according to Deutrom.
Deutrom also confirmed that Cricket Ireland is still planning to play its part in hosting the Euro T20 Slam, which was postponed in 2019 over a lack of financing.
"We stated last week that we were still hopeful of staging the inaugural season of the Euro T20 Slam and we have put plans in motion to facilitate that should our discussions with the organisers progress positively. We shall be providing further information on that in due course," he said.
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