Danish Cricket Yearbook 2019

n Af Jeremy Bray The Denmark National Team tour to Ireland in May 2019 was in preparation for the European T20 World Cup Qua- lifiers to be played in Guernsey from the 13-21st of June 2019. The 5 match T20 series was played at the beautiful settings of Trinity College in the heart of Dublin. This Ireland tour was a great opportunity to give players a chance to secure selection for the tour to Guernsey espe- cially considering quite a few unavailabilties for this trip. In a relatively close fought series on very difficult batting conditions totally foreign to what the Danish players are used, the Danes lost 4 of the fixtures with one wash out. Top total for the series was 140 from the Irish team called Lightening Bolts, the other 3 totals were hovering around the 120-130 mark which shows how low and slow the bat- ting pitches were. In all of the matches the Danes got within 20 to 30 runs of the winning total. The big difference between the two teams was the bowling. The Lightening Bolts which ho- sted several representative players were extremely disci- plined with their skills and tactical noose. This is no doubt down to the huge amount of T20 fixtures they are expo- sed to throughout the year compared to the very small amount the Danish players are. For the Danes the standout bowler was again Mr. Eco- nomy, Nicolaj Damgaard. Nicolaj troubled all the batsman with best figures of 4-23 and 3-26 of his allotted 8 overs in total. Nicolaj has gone from strength to strength with his left arm spin and will no doubt go on to bigger and better things with his cricket. Another player to impress on that tour was Oliver Hald. Although still young, raw and inex- perienced, Oliver showed great skill and competitiveness in all facets of the game and is another player to watch out for going forward. With the batting side of things, as mentioned, run-scoring was very difficult for both sides. Only one 50 plus score was managed by a player from either side which tells the story about the conditions. Hamid Shah was the standout batter on both sides and had a top score of 40. Hamid continues to show his development from a player we knew that had good ability to a player that is now star- ting to deliver more consistently on the big stage. Although the Danes came away without a win, there was a lot of good learning to take out of this trip regarding what roles certain players are best accustomed to. Ireland tour Tak for nogle lærerige dage i Irland Danmark drøfter T20-taktik og er klar til at gå i marken Dansk opvarming i de flotte omgivelser på Trinity College i Dublin Landsholdet i Irland I 22 I DANSK CRICKET ÅRSSKRIFT 20 19