LEINSTER LIGHTNING IN NORTH WEST

The Sherwin O’Riordan Leinster Lightning will head to Bready this week for two back-to-back IP fixtures against the North West Warriors.

With the Ireland Men’s team competing in the T20I Tri-Series against The Netherlands and Scotland, Andre Botha (LL Head Coach) is without no less than six of his first choice players including Fionn Hand who was called into the International squad when Graham Hume was unable to travel.

Leinster Lightning are unbeaten in the IP20 competition after 4 fixtures but lost their opening IP50 match last week to Munster.

The squad selected has therefore got just one enforced change from the group who beat Munster Reds in an IP20 at Sydney Parade last Thursday and includes players from 8 clubs from across the province including Tim Tector who made a century last Saturday when Pembroke overwhelmed Coleraine.

The change in the squad sees Jack Lalor from Phoenix replacing Pembroke’s Nick Stapleton who misses out with a slight side issue.

The eight clubs represented in the squad include 7 who were victorious at the weekend in All-Ireland Cup competitions, with Balbriggan’s game in Cork being rained off before a ball was bowled.

The batting unit is led by Tim Tector at the top of the order, who continued his scintillating InterPro form last week with another IP20 half-century in the victory over Munster Reds. Swapnil Modgil, Chris de Freitas & Philippe le Roux are the other top order men in the side.

The Lightning’s main strength is it’s depth of all-rounders, with explosive game-changers right through the middle order including new call-up Lalor, Pembroke’s Gavin Hoey, Clontarf’s David Delany, Merrion’s Sam Harbinson who skippers the side and Terenure gloveman Séamus Lynch.

The frontline bowlers in the squad feature a pair of spinners in Balbriggan’s Dylan Lues and Phoenix’s Amish Sidhu, with Clontarf’s Reuben Wilson and Merrion’s Mikey O’Reilly the final pair of seamers in this week’s 13.

Head Coach Botha is looking forward to hopefully building some momentum in this week’s fixtures;

“We definitely didn’t play to 100% of our abilities as a side last week, but it was great to see the team bouncing back from a disappointing result on Wednesday in the 50 over fixture to have a really nice win on Thursday in the T20, and being top of the table in that competition it was obviously important to keep that up.

It’s definitely positive to be able to pick up quickly after last week’s result, and with the Leinster teams in good form over the weekend the guys should hopefully be firing up to get us another positive result in the T20 on Tuesday afternoon and then get our IP50 campaign up and running on Wednesday.”

Leinster Lightning Squad

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Tuesday 21st: IP20 vs NWW (3.30pm, Bready)

Wednesday 22nd May: IP50 vs NWW (10.45am, Bready) 

Sam Harbinson (Merrion), Captain
Séamus Lynch (Terenure), WK
Tim Tector (Pembroke)
Swapnil Modgil (Merrion) 
Philippe le Roux (Railway Union)
Chris De Freitas (Balbriggan)
Dylan Lues (Balbriggan)
Jack Lalor (Phoenix)
David Delany (Clontarf)
Gavin Hoey (Pembroke/Dublin University)
Amish Sidhu (Phoenix)
Reuben Wilson (Clontarf)
Mikey O’Reilly (Merrion/Dublin University)

Coach/Management Team

Andre Botha
Dom Joyce
Michael Cotter