“With the prospect of little or no cricket in the coming months Stirling is hoping that he gets to line-out for Northants in the T20 Blast and then help Ireland through the T20 World Cup qualifier in Australia in October.
“I think when we looked at the fixtures there are a couple that stand out,” Stirling says.
“The first two against Oman and Papua New Guinea are massive. If we can win those we will be more or less guaranteed to make it through to the next phase with all the top teams in the world and iconic venues like Sydney, Perth and Brisbane.
“Also, it would automatically qualify us for the next World Cup”
With time on his hands and no Test cricket on the horizon, Ireland’s second highest run scorer has been reminiscing about the historic Test at Lords last July, when the men in green shocked the cricketing world for a couple of days.
“I’ve seen a few highlights on social media and it really does bring the memories back,” he says.
“It was such a special time. It’s hard to put into words, you sort of float through it – an amazing achievement for the first two days, but it obviously didn’t go our way on the last day.
“I remember on the third day saying to Tim Murtagh, who knew Lords so well, that with the cloud cover and the coolness it wasn’t going to be easy and, of course, that proved to be the case”
