Cricket Ireland have announced squads for both the Ireland U15's and U13 Player Development Programme.
U13 Lead Coach Michael Hingston and fellow coaches James Colhoun and Callum Atkinson have named 24 players who will take part in a series of National Weekends throughout the coming months as they look to shape the next generation of Irish cricket stars.
"Myself and the Under 13 coaching team are really looking forward to this year’s Player Devlopment Programme and working with some of the best players in the country at this age-group," said Hingston. "We are going to make some exciting changes to the Programme in the summer, details of which will be announced in due-course.
"This age-group is all about introducing the players to the Cricket Ireland Player Development Pathway, so we aim to prepare the players and build some solid-foundations for them to be youth and ultimately future senior international players," added Hingston.
"We hope they enjoy the new challenges that lie-ahead and further develop the basic and good skills that they are learning within their Inter-provincial set-ups. Best of luck to all the players, we look forward to seeing them soon at the first National Weekend."
The U13 Player Development Programme Group is as follows:
Kayat Bhavsar (St Johnston/NW), Mark Canniffe (Railway Union/LCU), Adam Clinton (The Hills/LCU), Raymond Curry (Bonds Glen/NW), Matthew Daly (Waringstown/NCU), Wilhelm DeKlerk (Malahide/LCU), Cameron Doak (Lisburn/NCU), Andrew Doheny (Rush/LCU), James Forbes (YMCA/LCU), Kenzie Hall (Killyclooney/NW), Adam Kennedy (Instonians/NCU), Philippe Le Roux (Railway Union/LCU), Scott MacBeth (St Johnston/NW), Nathan McCombe (Bready/NW), Carson McCullough (CIYMS/NCU), James McKillop (Bready/NW), Ben Parker (The Hills/LCU), James Rose (Instonians/NCU), Ivan Ryan (The Hills/LCU), James Ryan (The Hills/LCU), Andrew Tonge (Leinster/LCU), Mark Tonge (Leinster/LCU), Sam Topping (Waringstown/NCU), Luke Whelan (North County/LCU).
Cricket Ireland U15 Lead Coach Simon Johnston and his team have named a squad of 20 for their winter programme.
Johnston is hopeful of continued strong showings from the squad following an exciting 2016 for the age-group.
“We expect this years squad to be very strong with the majority of boys in the squad 15 years old," said Johnston. "On top of this we have five boys returning who played for Ireland 15's last year.
"It will be a big challenge this year playing the Celtic Cup series away from home against Scotland and we also look forward to returning to the Jersey tournament to play the older age counties sides again - that proved a brilliant test for our boys last summer.”
The Ireland U15 winter training squad is as follows:
Luke Allison (Donaghcloney/NCU), Adam Boyd (Fox Lodge/NW), Ben Brownlee (YMCA/LCU), Samuel Johannes DeKlerk (Malahide/LCU), Nathan Doak (Lisburn/NCU), Michael Glass (Lisburn/NCU), Gavin Hoey (Pembroke/LCU), James Hunter (Instonians/NCU), Archie Johnston (CSNI/NCU), Aiden Logue (Fox Lodge/NW), Kyle Magee (Bonds Glen/NW), Reece Malone (Derriaghy/NCU), Nathan McGuire (Rush/LCU), Oliver Metcalfe (Instonians/NCU), Carlu Nienaber (Limerick/MCU), Michael O'Reilly (YMCA/LCU), Scott Ruttle (YMCA/LCU), Alex Stiles (Railway Union/LCU), Tim Tector (YMCA/LCU), Mitchell Thompson (YMCA/LCU).