Stormont stages a first Test between Ireland and New Zealand as Balbirnie names four uncapped
Stormont stages something it has never staged before on Wednesday morning. Ireland and New Zealand walk out for the first Test ever played between the two sides, an 11am start under Belfast skies, with Andrew Balbirnie back as captain for the tenth time and four uncapped names in his squad waiting to find out if they get a debut on day one.
Ireland are playing only their 13th Test. Balbirnie has played every one of the previous twelve, the only Irishman to feature in all of them. Tenth Test as captain, thirteenth as a player. That is the scale of how new this still is for the country.
Four uncapped names in a depleted squad
Four uncapped players are in the fourteen: Jake Egan, Tom Mayes, Liam McCarthy, and Reuben Wilson. Cricket Ireland have not yet named the playing eleven, but with the senior options thin some of them will play. Paul Stirling is out injured. So is Josh Little. So are Barry McCarthy, Gavin Hoey and Jordan Neill. That is the spine of a normal Ireland line-up missing in one window.
What is left is Balbirnie himself, Lorcan Tucker behind the stumps, Harry Tector at number three, Curtis Campher in the middle order, Mark Adair and Andrew McBrine to do the heavy red-ball work with new ball and old. Cade Carmichael, Stephen Doheny, Matthew Humphreys and Craig Young are the rest of the capped names. Then the four debutants in waiting.
New Zealand turn up with Williamson and a milestone
For New Zealand this is the start of a long tour. One Test in Belfast, then three against England starting on 4 June. Tom Latham captains, Kane Williamson is back in the Test setup, and the headline number around him is hard to miss. Williamson has 9,461 Test runs going into the match. Another 539 across the four Tests of this tour and he becomes the first New Zealander to reach 10,000.
The rest of the touring squad reads like the Test side that has done their red-ball work for the last two cycles. Devon Conway, Daryl Mitchell, Glenn Phillips, Rachin Ravindra. Matt Henry, Kyle Jamieson and Will O'Rourke share the seam load with Ben Sears and Nathan Smith. Tom Blundell keeps wicket. Blair Tickner and Zak Foulkes are the rotation pieces.
A four-day Test and what it actually is
This Test is scheduled for four days, not five, the format ICC uses for fixtures outside the World Test Championship cycle. Stormont has only ever staged one Test before, the four-wicket Ireland win over Zimbabwe in July 2024, and the ground has been prepared again with seam in mind. New Zealand have not played a Test since December, when they beat West Indies by 323 runs at Mount Maunganui to win that series 2-0. The shorter format and the rust on both sides should keep this one alive longer than a one-off historically has any right to.
Williamson does not need to do anything special this week. Forty-five in the first innings and another forty in the second moves him past 9,500. Balbirnie needs more from his side: pick the right names from the four uncapped, hold off Williamson and Conway across two innings, and win the first ever Test between these two countries on home soil. That is the bar.
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