CIYMS delighted to add Pretorius to their squad after Pienaar’s recommendation
NCU Premier League champions CIYMS have announced Migael Pretorius as their overseas professional for next year.
The 24-year-old South African has better red-ball stats — 98 first class wickets and three 50s with a top score of 81 — than white-ball figures but the Belmont side will be expecting the new ball bowler to make an instant impact as replacement for compatriot Obus Pienaar, who recommended him to his former employers.
Pretorius, from Gauteng, has taken 18 wickets in his 15 List A games and 19 in the same number of T20 matches, although he was good enough to be selected for the Abu Dhabi T10 League and was a member of the winning Arabians side.
CIYMS won all three NCU trophies last season as well as the All-Ireland T20 Cup but they will be as determined as ever to win the Irish Cup for the first time.
They lost to beaten finalists Waringstown in the semi-final this term but, like all the other entrants, have an extended wait to find out their first opponents next year after Cricket Ireland announced yesterday the draw has been put back until late January.
The reason given was that the international fixture calendar has still to be finalised and with Ireland set to play at least 18 home matches outside of the three-week window for the Euro T20 Slam, it promises to be the busiest summer ever.
The domestic cup competitions in both the NCU and North West have also been put back.
West Indies, Ireland’s first opposition of the new year, yesterday lost the deciding match of their T20 series against India by 67 runs.
Captain Kieron Pollard scored Windies’ third half century of the series in Mumbai — 68 off 39 balls — following Shimron Hetmyer in the first and man of the match Lendl Simmons in the second game, but they could total only 173-8 in reply to India’s 240-3.
The teams begin a threematch ODI series on Sunday, West Indies’ last action before they face Ireland in three ODIs and three T20Is starting in Barbados on January 7.
The first Test match played in Pakistan since 2009 got under way in Rawalpindi yesterday. Sri Lanka finished the opening day on 202-5.
It was the Sri Lanka team bus which came under attack during a Test match in Lahore 10 years which resulted in six members of the squad and two of their staff being injured. Six policemen and two civilians were killed and no team had returned since.