A string of milestones were reached in 2024 with Ireland\u2019s first test match wins, against Afghanistan in Abu Dhabi and a home-pitch victory against Zimbabwe, and a tied two-match T20 series against South Africa.<\/p>\n
Last year, Ireland beat the West Indies by 124 runs in a 50-overs match in Dublin, and on June 28 completed an historic 2-0 ODI series win over India.<\/p>\n
A day later, Malan shocked the growing band of supporters by announcing he was opting out with a year to go on his contract, having decided it\u2019s a good time to step back, as Ireland starts another era looking at the 2027 World Cup in southern Africa. <\/p>\n
He\u2019s now signed a three-year contract with the Central Districts Cricket Association, which in first-class Plunket Shield cricket, the one-day Ford Trophy series and Super Smash T20 cricket represents minor associations from Nelson and Marlborough in the South Island to Hawke\u2019s Bay in the north, except Wellington.<\/p>\n
Due back in Hawke\u2019s Bay this month, Malan said in a Stags statement: \u201cHawke\u2019s Bay is special to us. Our daughter Mila\u2019s got really good memories of growing up there, and our two lads were born there.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got a real affinity for the region and for CD,\u201d he said. \u201cIt makes your heart feel nice and warm knowing that there\u2019s people there who really care about us.<\/p>\n
\u201cI honestly can\u2019t wait for the weeks to fly by so we can get our feet on the ground in Napier again,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Malan quickly found his feet across all formats when assuming his role with the Stags for the first time, at 31. They won consecutive Ford Trophy titles in his second and third seasons, back-to-back Plunket Shield championships in 2018 and 2019, and the 2019 T20 Super Smash trophy.<\/p>\n
He coached Black Caps understudies New Zealand A in 2018.<\/p>\n
He is looking forward to seeing the team\u2019s high performance centre at Mitre 10 Park, Hastings, in person for the first time. <\/p>\n
Since 2023, the 16-lane Rodney Green Foundation Turf Training Facility, adjacent Indoor Centre and athlete facilities have transformed CD\u2019s ability to upskill and prepare elite and District representative players.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we lacked 10 years ago, the lads wouldn\u2019t even think about now because they\u2019ve got it all at their fingertips,\u201d Malan said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey rock up in the morning at 8am, they don\u2019t leave until 4pm, and they\u2019ve got everything on site which is a fantastic prospect for us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The 16 players so far contracted for the Stags for the 2026-2027 season include nine based in or linked to Hawke\u2019s Bay.<\/p>\n
Doug Laing began a career as a journalist at the Central Hawke\u2019s Bay Press in Waipukurau in 1973, and, having worked in Masterton, Auckland and Wellington, has been based back in Hawke\u2019s Bay since 1987, working for the Daily Telegraph in Napier and for Hawke\u2019s Bay Today following a newspaper merger in 1999. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A string of milestones were reached in 2024 with Ireland\u2019s first test match wins, against Afghanistan in Abu…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":842471,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,17356,8421,9826,101692,505,3181,740,261763,5587,9492,414582,10969,8117,414583,17415,85,414584,8634,319,39407],"class_list":["post-842470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-away","tag-back","tag-bay","tag-cant","tag-central","tag-coach","tag-cricket","tag-districts","tag-from","tag-hawkes","tag-heinrich","tag-irish","tag-just","tag-malan","tag-mens","tag-sports","tag-stags","tag-stay","tag-to","tag-triumph"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842470","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=842470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842470\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/842471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=842470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=842470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=842470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}