Foster, a 24-year-old pace bowler who represents Northern Knights and CSNI in Ireland’s domestic competitions, is one of four uncapped players in a much-changed Test squad from the one that faced Afghanistan in 2019.
Barry McCarthy, Theo van Woerkom and Craig Young are also in contention for debuts when the one-off Test gets underway in Abu Dhabi on February 28, for which Andrew Balbirnie will continue as captain.
Three ODIs and three T20Is will then follow in Sharjah between March 7 and 18, with Paul Stirling – Balbirnie’s white-ball successor, who last year became one of only 25 players to score a century across all three formats – set to lead in both series.
After achieving a clean sweep of their ODI and T20I series in Zimbabwe in December, Ireland underwent a training camp in Spain last week, and will fly out to the UAE five days ahead of the Test to acclimatise.
“We have played a lot of cricket over the last decade in this part of the world, so the conditions should be somewhat familiar to the players – albeit, predominantly in the white ball formats,” Andrew White, Ireland’s selector, said. “While there has been a 12-week gap, the squad should carry some confidence and momentum into this series from the successful tour of Zimbabwe in December.”
Only five members of the Test squad featured in Ireland’s seven-wicket defeat in Dehradun in 2019, with White acknowledging that they had undergone “an enormous transformation” across formats since that last multi-format tour.
“This series is a crucial one in our preparations ahead of a big summer, which includes the T20 World Cup,” he said. “This is always a highly-anticipated contest and I would expect this to be a hard-fought series – one I’m very much looking forward to.”
Test squad: Mark Adair, Andrew Balbirnie (capt), Curtis Campher, George Dockrell, Matthew Foster, Graham Hume, Andy McBrine, Barry McCarthy, James McCollum, PJ Moor, Paul Stirling, Harry Tector, Lorcan Tucker, Theo van Woerkom, Craig Young.
ODI squad: Mark Adair, Andrew Balbirnie, Curtis Campher, Gareth Delany, George Dockrell, Matthew Foster, Graham Hume, Andy McBrine, Barry McCarthy, Neil Rock, Paul Stirling (capt), Harry Tector, Lorcan Tucker, Theo van Woerkom, Craig Young.
T20I squad: Mark Adair, Ross Adair, Andrew Balbirnie, Curtis Campher, Gareth Delany, George Dockrell, Graham Hume, Josh Little, Barry McCarthy, Neil Rock, Paul Stirling (capt), Harry Tector, Lorcan Tucker, Ben White, Craig Young.
