Ireland end a 14-month wait for an ODI at Bready, against a side rated 90 to their 54
Gary Wilson’s first series in charge pairs three ODI debutants with a returning Paul Stirling, against a side that has won the last six meetings between them.
Aug 5, 2026
Ireland last played a one-day international in May 2025, when West Indies drew a rain-hit series 1-1 at home. Fourteen months later they walk out at Bready to start a five-match series against Afghanistan, and the ranking table tells you what kind of reintroduction this is. Afghanistan carry a rating of 90. Ireland’s is 54.
A new coach, three debutants and a long injury list
Gary Wilson takes his first series as Ireland head coach. He was confirmed on 29 June, the day Heinrich Malan stepped down, and Malan stayed on through July to hand the job over before this tour. Wilson had been Malan’s assistant since 2022, played 292 times for Ireland across a 15-year career and retired in 2021. He is the first Irish-born man to hold the role in more than three decades.
He inherits a squad picked around absences. Josh Little, Craig Young, Barry McCarthy, Matt Holland, Jordan Neill and David Delany are all unavailable through injury, which is most of a first-choice seam attack. Jai Moondra, Ben Calitz and Byron McDonough are in line for ODI debuts. Cricket Ireland named 14 players for the first three matches only.
The one clear gain is at the top. Paul Stirling is back as captain after the injury that cut short his T20 World Cup, and alongside Andrew Balbirnie he gives Ireland an opening pair with a decade of shared history. Harry Tector, Lorcan Tucker and Curtis Campher fill out a middle order that has carried this side through most of its better days.
Rahmat Shah’s first assignment
Afghanistan are changing at the top as well, though from a far steadier base. Rahmat Shah replaced Hashmatullah Shahidi as Test and ODI captain in July, with Rahmanullah Gurbaz as his deputy, and this is the first series he leads. He is an unflashy choice in a squad full of louder cricketers: 128 ODIs, 4,121 runs at 35.22, five hundreds and 33 fifties, and the highest run tally any Afghanistan batter has managed in the format.
Richard Pybus, who took over as head coach in February after Jonathan Trott left following the T20 World Cup, keeps Rashid Khan, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Ibrahim Zadran and Azmatullah Omarzai available. On paper that is a stronger XI than anything Ireland can put out this month, and Afghanistan have not needed a strong XI to beat Ireland lately.
Six in a row, and one win since 2019
Afghanistan have won the last six ODIs between the sides. Ireland’s most recent victory in the fixture came in May 2019. The last completed series between them, in Sharjah in 2024, went to Afghanistan 2-0. Across 32 ODIs the head-to-head reads 18-13 in Afghanistan’s favour, a margin that has been built almost entirely in the past seven years.
Bready itself is close to a blank page. The ground at Magheramason has staged exactly one men’s ODI, against Zimbabwe on 1 July 2019, so neither side arrives with much of a read on it. The first two matches are there before the series moves to Stormont in Belfast for the last three, on 10, 12 and 15 August.
What the rankings actually decide
Both teams have a reason to care about rating points beyond pride. Qualification for the 2027 World Cup runs through the ICC ODI team rankings as they stand on 31 March 2027. South Africa and Zimbabwe are already in as co-hosts. The eight highest-ranked sides outside that pair go straight to the tournament, and everyone below them is pushed into a qualifier next year.
Afghanistan sit eighth on 90, which is exactly the position where a bad five weeks starts to matter. They have played only 24 ranked matches in the current window, so results here move their number more than they would move India’s or Sri Lanka’s. Beat Ireland comfortably and the cushion grows. Lose one or two and a side ranked far below them has taken points off a total that cannot afford to shrink.
Ireland’s arithmetic is bleaker and, in a way, simpler. A rating of 54 is not a top-eight conversation. What this series offers Wilson is the first look at whether three debutants and a returning captain can build something worth taking into a qualifier, and whether Ireland’s June win over India in the T20Is was the start of anything or just a very good fortnight.