'They have shown us some areas where we can improve' - Ireland's Lorcan Tucker highlights learnings from New Zealand series

Despite defeats in the first two games of the three-match T20 International series against New Zealand, wicket-keeper Lorcan Tucker believes that learnings taken from these games will stand to this Irish team as they go forward into the T20 World Cup in October.

Tucker believes that the team are on the right track if they stay focused on the process, and is hopeful that the team can pull off a victory in the final T20I on Friday in Stormont.

Speaking ahead of the final game in the series Tucker said: “New Zealand have shown us some areas where we can improve as well as highlighting some of their own strengths. It’s important for us to look at what high-quality opposition do in certain scenarios. Their clarity and execution of skills can offer us new ideas and ways of playing.

“Results-wise, it’s been a bit disappointing. New Zealand have played some good cricket and we haven’t performed as well as we would have liked. We are trying to build a method that suits our style of play, and these things can take time to get right. Every game is an opportunity for us to improve so we’ll be looking to do that in the third game on Friday.”

What do you think the team can do differently to hopefully get a result on Friday?

“We’ve shown already what we can do in the game against India a few weeks ago. We want to continue in this vein of playing positive cricket and taking the opposition on. As a team, we think that if we can collectively do this, it’ll serve us well into the future.”

These games are very important in the context of the T20 World Cup later in the year. How important are results at this stage in that process? Is it just a case of battling away and figuring out what works best for the team going forward?

“Results are always important and are great motivators for performance. That’s not to say that they are the be all and end all. As a team, we believe that if the method and process is developed in the right way, the results will look after themselves.”

IRELAND MEN’S ODI SQUAD

Andrew Balbirnie (Captain), Mark Adair, Curtis Campher, Gareth Delany, George Dockrell, Stephen Doheny, Josh Little, Andrew McBrine, Barry McCarthy, Fionn Hand, Paul Stirling, Harry Tector, Lorcan Tucker, Craig Young.

FIXTURE SCHEDULE

T20I series:

Friday 22 July: Ireland v New Zealand, 3rd T20I (Stormont; start time 4pm)

The game is fully sold-out.

BROADCAST DETAILS

In Republic of Ireland and the UK, matches will be shown on BT Sport as follows:

3rd T20 – BT Sport 3

For the rest of the world, the broadcast details are:

New Zealand: Spark Sport
India: FanCode
Sub Saharan Africa: SuperSport
Caribbean: Flow Sports
MENA: Etisalat
South East Asia: Eleven
US: Willow