DUBLIN – In her first press conference as the new Ireland Women’s captain, Gaby Lewis outlined her goals for the side, the importance of key players to the senior squad and the ICC Women’s Championship.
Lewis, 23, was confirmed in the leadership role last month and the upcoming tour to Bangladesh will be her first one as captain. Full details of the tour can be found here.
Speaking from Melbourne where she is spending the Irish winter playing grade cricket, Lewis spoke about the importance of former captain Laura Delany to the squad:
“Over the years, I’ve learned so much from Laura [Delany] not only from a leadership point of view, but cricket in general… So, she’s someone that I’ll rely on as well, which is great and brilliant to have her back in the squad.
“I think she’s probably the only person in the squad that’s played in Bangladesh which is huge. There was a tour before I made my first cap, so it’ll be huge experience for us to rely on her and get that information about how the pitches might play and things like that which will be very valuable to the squad.”
On vice-captain Orla Prendergast, she said:
“I think she’s one of those players that can single-handedly win you a match and they’re hard to come by. She’s been absolutely brilliant in her development over the last 12 months – and she’s really developed her leadership skills as well which I’ll be relying on heavily. I think we work very well together and she’s got a great cricket brain. So I can’t wait to see what the future holds for her.”
What to expect in Bangladesh:
“It’ll be heavy, heavy spin. We’ve done a lot of analysis on them and they’re definitely going to be a spin-heavy attack – so, that’s something that we’re expecting. And I think when it comes to conditions, it’s hard to read into things before you go out there. You can get your mindset right on how the pitches will play, but actually I think you just need to make your own decisions when we get out there and that’s we’ll do. We’ve got a good lead into it and we’re ready to hit the ground running.
“We’re two closely-ranked sides – they are a team that we’ve been neck-and-neck with over the years, but we haven’t played them for a while. So I think it will be a great test for us and a great series between the two teams.”
The importance of the ICC Women’s Championship:
“I think it just shows that if you constantly play better opposition, it just lifts our standards as well. We showed that in the summer playing against Sri Lanka and England and getting wins against both those teams and it’s great that now Zimbabwe are going to witness that as well. So it’s hugely exciting for the growth of women’s cricket as well and not letting those top teams kind of run away with it. It’s kind of bringing the bridge together.”
What they need to focus on as team:
“Just being more consistent across all facets of the game. I think we showed over the summer glimpses of what we can potentially achieve. Just having that belief and I think that’s what the summer did. It just showed the girls like that we can actually do it. And a big one is fielding – which hopefully we’ll push on in the next couple of months and look to peak when we when we hit those qualifying events next year.”
What to expect from her captaincy:
“That’s a very hard question – hopefully a lot of wins! Seriously, though, just to build on what I think we’ve done in the last while and kind of just constantly evolving and constantly moving forward would be what I hope to expect.”