Ireland are off on their travels this week for two ‘home’ matches against South Africa, with the County Ground at Bristol the venue, to ease the workload on the international pitches in Malahide, Bready and Stormont.

It is sure to be the hardest and bounciest pitch of the season which, as head coach Heinrich Malan admits, will be ideal preparation for the surfaces the team can expect in Australia at the T20 World Cup in October.

“We have had good surfaces at Pembroke this week and Malahide for the India matches, and Stormont looked better than it played but this will be another level again,” said Malan.

“Even in domestic cricket we want the flattest wickets possible because that’s what you play on in international cricket and if we can replicate that it will create more exposure for the players at this level.”

The T20 festival at Pembroke, which produced four successive first innings scores of over 200 on the first two days – and included two successful chases – underlined the new mindset of fearlessness from the batsmen, but it also showed up the failings of the bowlers. Malan is encouraging them to ‘think outside the box’.

He went on: “In T20 cricket you are going to get hit so how do we change that mindset to take wickets but not get hurt? In the short time I’ve been here a big conversation between the players is for the batters to accelerate and take the game forward and that’s what happening. Now the focus turns to the bowlers, it’s going to take time but hopefully we will see that happening soon.”

Malan was not too disappointed, or surprised, that Ireland were unable to follow up their performance in the second T20I against India when they slumped to three heavy defeats – “that happens in T20 cricket, England won the first T20 last week by a long way, South Africa the next day won by a long way”, he said.

“In the first five T20 games we’ve played, the players have shown they have the ability and skills but when under pressure against the big teams we have to start executing a bit more and that is part of the growth. But the more we play, the quicker the acceleration will be and that’s exciting.”