Coach Heinrich Malan was also expecting some good support from the sizeable Irish population in New York
Ireland and India begin their World Cup campaigns on June 5 against each other at the newly minted Nassau County International Cricket Stadium in Eisenhower Park of New York.
While the Indian team is fresh off playing the Indian Premier League (IPL), the Irish recently defeated Pakistan in a T20I at home and are coming into the World Cup with many players in good form.
However, they are up against more than India in the game, as the Irish will be playing their first-ever game at the stadium. They haven’t even entered the facility yet to train, and Heinrich Malan, coach of the Ireland team, acknowledged the challenger in front of them but chose to focus on the “controllable.”
“Yeah, look, we haven’t been there [the stadium]. I’m going to head out there soon. Again, I guess that’s one of the things you can’t control,” Malan said.
“There’s a lot of logistics going on in the background, and again, we’re focusing on the things that we can try and control, and we’ve got the dimensions. We’ve obviously seen what happened yesterday [in South Africa, Sri Lanka game], and at the end of the day, it’s like I said something we can’t control, and we’ll make sure that we try, and you know, control the controllable.”
The first T20I played at the pop-up venue was a low-scoring snooze fest, as Sri Lanka was bundled for just 77 runs, and South Africa lost four wickets trying to chase it down. The pitch’s nature will impact Ireland’s planning for the game, and they’ll have to devise new plans to respond to the situation.
“I guess after yesterday’s game, it might be a little bit of a change in plan. And look, like I said, we haven’t seen the wicket. We haven’t been out there. I’m going to head there soon. At the end of the day, it’s not a controllable – whether we can train there or not as there are no training facilities there. For us, we don’t need to spend mental energy on that rather spend our mental energy on having clear plans doing our preparation work and making sure that everyone’s aware of how that could impact the game,” Malan remarked.
However, despite all the problems faced by the Irish team as they prepared for their first game, Malan remained appreciative of the efforts involved in getting the stadium ready for cricket.
“I guess if you look at the pictures and how quickly they’ve assembled the ground and erected it, it’s a great effort,” Malan said.
“Yeah, it’s a challenge [handling the logistics in New York]. But again, I think the one thing that we’ve constantly been trying to focus on is being adaptable and versatile. We can’t control that. It is what it is. We’ve got to get on with it. We’re not here, you know, to have a holiday. We’re here to play cricket. And at the end of the day, those are the cards we’ve dealt, and we’ve got to try and make the best of it.”
Malan was also hopeful that the large Irish community in New York would show up for their games and cheer them on.
“There was a nice little event last night in Gibney’s in town, where a few players were around to meet up with the Irish community out here. And yeah, hopefully over the next little period, we will get a couple of people coming to support us starting tomorrow. I’m sure they will, as they always do.”
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