Ireland’s Permanent White-ball Captain is Paul Stirling

With two T20 World Cups and a 50-over World Cup scheduled to take place in the next four years, national selectors have chosen Paul Stirling the permanent white-ball captain of the Ireland men’s team, starting immediately. Andrew Balbirnie will remain the red-ball captain.

Stirling has captained Ireland 22 times in all forms (six ODIs and sixteen T20Is). Stirling was named the temporary white-ball captain in July after Andrew Balbirnie’s resignation from that position.

Stirling is the highest-scoring player in Ireland Men’s history with 11,756 runs scored in all forms during his 376 appearances for the country.

Only 25 cricket players have scored a century in all three forms, including him.

“Playing for Ireland has always been a source of pride for me, and to be confirmed as the permanent white-ball captain is a recognition I don’t take for granted,” Stirling stated in reference to his permanent appointment.

As interim captain, I have really enjoyed working with Heinrich (Malan) and the coaching staff over the last several months, but as we all know, we may have three World Cup campaigns in the next four years, so the work must begin now.

“We also understand that the next T20 World Cup is only eight months away, so the clock is officially ticking on our preparations.”

Ireland National Selector Andrew White congratulated Stirling for accepting the role and said that he has committed to serving Ireland cricket.

“Despite working closely with Paul Stirling in an interim capacity over the last few months, we’re delighted that Stirlo [Paul Stirling] has accepted the role and it feels as though we are now at the start of a new cycle with a lot of cricket coming our way over the next four years,” said White.

Given the weight of a captain’s duties, both on and off the field, the division of the white-ball and red-ball leadership is significant to us. We think Andrew Balbirnie can still contribute a lot to red-ball leadership and want him to stay in that role, he said, with Paul concentrating on the ODI and T20 disciplines.

“We have a vast reservoir of cricket knowledge that can benefit the wider squad, especially with Paul and Andrew, who between them have 600 caps as our white and red ball captains,” he added.