![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/7704232c-5658-4b46-8b5d-a204fb17c0c8.jpg\")
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The Ireland cricket team’s head coach Heinrich Malan. Photo: Sportsfile<\/p>\n
Heinrich Malan has added his voice to calls for a two-tier Test championship as Ireland prepare to meet Bangladesh for only their second two-match series in the format later this month.<\/p>\n
Although head coach Malan has overseen three successive Test wins \u2013 the first against Afghanistan, followed by home and away victories over Zimbabwe \u2013 he has not previously championed the longest form of the game.<\/p>\n
But if the ICC adopt a proposal to expand the existing nine-team Test championship to 12, with two divisions of six, Ireland would find themselves playing regularly against Pakistan, the West Indies and Bangladesh, as well as Afghanistan and Zimbabwe.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fact that there could be promotion and relegation will really give it some context and so I\u2019d be very much in favour, in general, and it would mean more Test cricket,\u201d Malan said.<\/p>\n
The prohibitive cost of staging Tests has meant the Boys in Green have played just two at home \u2013 and 10 in total \u2013 in the eight years since being elevated to the top table of world cricket.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe put a high price on Test cricket. The fact that we don\u2019t play it that often heightens that a little bit as well,\u201d Malan said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve played a fair few one-off Test matches and hopefully, as we move forward, we can keep seeing two Tests taking place as a minimum. I know it\u2019s not always viable, but that\u2019s definitely something that we would be pushing for.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ireland have only played one two-match series, losing both games to Sri Lanka in Galle in 2023, in the same month the Boys in Green lost their only encounter with Bangladesh in Dhaka.<\/p>\n
Without fully committing himself, Malan gave a strong nod towards Cade Carmichael to open the batting for Ireland in the first Test at Sylhet next week, after the retirement of PJ Moor.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has shown that real appetite to score runs and done that consistently throughout the year,\u201d Malan said. \u201cHe did that in domestic cricket, in club cricket and obviously when he\u2019s had his opportunities in the Wolves, he\u2019s done that too.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Ireland cricket team’s head coach Heinrich Malan. Photo: Sportsfile Heinrich Malan has added his voice to calls…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120065,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[8755,27606,61,60,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-120064","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-cricket","9":"tag-david-townsend","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120064\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}