James Fizpatrick
| cricket20
As part of their build up to the Twenty20 World Cup qualifiers in the United Arab Emirates Ireland have announced they will take part in a quadrangular Twenty20 competition in Sri Lanka.
They will take on Sri Lanka A, Afghanistan and Canada at the end of January as the Irish look to get more experience of the Twenty20 format.
Ireland coach Phil Simmons will us the tournament as an ideal preparation for the qualifiers in February which the Irish are favorites to win and gain a place in the Twenty20 World Cup in the West Indies.
"This will help get us into the mindset of the shorter game. It will give the squad a good workout ahead of the UAE leg of the tour." said Simmons.
"We still haven't played a lot of 20 over cricket, although the experience of playing in the finals in England last year will help us. There are only two places up for grabs for the finals in the West Indies, so it will be difficult for all the teams."
"here will be a lot of pressure games with so much at stake, but we have a lot of experience in our camp, which is so vital as we showed last year when we won the World Cup Qualifiers in South Africa."
" and the players want to make it four in a row in terms of qualifying for the major tournaments - when you get a taste of the big time, you want more. The players are still hungry for more success, and for me there would be the added bonus of coaching Ireland in the West Indies," added Simmons.
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