Paul Stirling

Paul Stirling has long been recognised as a formidable talent both in Ireland and beyond. With a natural swagger and belligerence allied to a portly build, he generates huge power with seemingly little effort, and is particularly strong lashing the ball straight or pulling it over midwicket.

Born in Belfast, Stirling made his ODI debut in 2008, aged just 17. In 2010, he thumped a 134-ball 177 against Canada - still the highest ODI score by an Irishman. At the 2011 World Cup, he scored 101 against Netherlands, then followed it up two months later with hundreds against Pakistan and Scotland at home. He has far and away the most centuries by any Ireland player in ODIs, one of them a 128-ball 147 in a record chase of 329 against England.

Stirling also revealed his big-match temperament with a pair of blistering innings against Afghanistan in the finals of the World T20 qualifiers in 2012 and 2013. A back injury has limited his bowling, but Stirling has frequently bowled his full allocation of overs, including in Ireland's historic win over England in the 2011 World Cup.

Stirling debuted with Middlesex in 2009 but his first-class and limited-overs cricket career with them has been a study in contrasts. He averaged 43.37 for them against the red-ball but only 28.16 in the County Championship, with two hundreds in contrast to the eight he scored in List A. In 2019, when Ireland achieved Test status, Stirling had to choose between his forgoing his Middlesex contract or international career, and he chose the latter.

Stirling captained Ireland for the first time in 2018 at the Hong Kong Sixes, and often found himself filling in when a first-choice skipper was elsewhere. In October 2023, Stirling was confirmed as Ireland's full-time white-ball captain after Andy Balbirnie stepped down. By then, he also had his first Test hundred, which came against Sri Lanka in Galle.

Stirling's big-hitting skills put him on the franchise cricket map, and he made appearances in the PSL, BPL, ILT20, SA20 and The Hundred, in which he scored an unbeaten 42-ball 74 for Southern Brave in a nine-wicket takedown of Welsh Fire in 2022.