{"id":551119,"date":"2026-03-19T18:51:21","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T18:51:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/551119\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T18:51:21","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T18:51:21","slug":"ireland-cricket-paul-stirling-steps-down-as-irish-t20-captain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/551119\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland cricket: Paul Stirling steps down as Irish T20 captain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Stirling added that he remains &#8220;fully committed&#8221; to Ireland despite ending his captaincy. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I still have a huge amount of ambition as a player and feel this decision will allow me to fully focus on being the best version of myself and making the strongest possible contribution on the field,&#8221; he said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;This feels like the right time for the team to move into a new chapter, and I wish whoever takes on the T20 captaincy every success. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;They will have my full support, and I look forward to working alongside them as we continue to build and push for success on the international stage.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Representing Ireland remains the greatest privilege of my career and I am as motivated as ever to help the team continue to grow and achieve success in the years ahead.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Cricket Ireland director of high performance Graeme West praised Stirling as an &#8220;outstanding leader&#8221;. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;He will continue to captain the ODI squad with the initial goal to successfully navigate qualification and lead the team in ICC Men&#8217;s Cricket World Cup next October-November,&#8221; added West. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;With qualification secured for the T20 World Cup in 2028, Paul&#8217;s decision to stand down as T20 captain provides the opportunity for the new captain to begin implementing their style and methodology, starting with the India series in June.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stirling added that he remains &#8220;fully committed&#8221; to Ireland despite ending his captaincy. &#8220;I still have a huge&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":551120,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-551119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=551119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551119\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/551120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}