IRELAND head into this week’s World Twenty20 Qualifier in less optimistic form than they might be.

Two bad defeats to Scotland have rattled supporters, although the big guns of William Porterfield, Paul Stirling, Gary Wilson and Niall O’Brien were absent at Bready.

It’s a squad of deep experience (eight have played between 40 and 70 games) mixed with raw promise (six more have five caps or fewer). Only Stuart Thompson lies in the middle although his 11 caps have yielded just two wickets and 61 runs.

The bowling attack is particularly untried and much will depend on the form of spinners Stirling and George Dockrell who have taken 100 T20 wickets between them while keeping the scoring below 6.3 per over.

Alex Cusack and Kevin O’Brien have coughed around a respectable 7.2 but the rest of the attack have been a lot more expensive.

Happily the batting line-up is the strongest in the tournament

Stirling and O’Brien are respected worldwide for their belligerence but William Porterfield and Andy Balbirnie have made great strides in recent years and are well capable of demolishing any attack.

Ireland have finished in the top two of all four previous T20 qualifiers and expect to make it through this tournament, the first under new coach John Bracewell.

Ireland are often slow starters – especially with the first warm-up falling foul of the weather – and open the event on Friday against Namibia, who beat them in the opening game in the 2012 qualifier.

The Africans have declined since, and the biggest dangers are likely to be Nepal and Hong Kong in a group which also includes USA, Papua New Guinea and Jersey.

But with six places available in India 2016 there won’t be much sleep lost over not reaching the last eight.

Ireland squad: Porterfield (capt, Warwickshire), Balbirnie (Middlesex), Cusack (Clontarf), Dockrell (Somerset), Kane (Merrion), McBrine (Donemana), McCarter (Coleraine), Mooney (Balbriggan), N O'Brien (Leicestershire), K O'Brien (Railway Union), S Poynter (Durham), Stirling (Middlesex), Thompson (Eglinton), Wilson (Surrey), Young (Bready).

Ireland’s fixtures: v Namibia, Friday, Stormont, 10am; v USA, Sun July 12, Stormont, 10am; v Nepal, Mon July 13, Stormont, 2.15pm; v PNG, Wed July 15, Stormont, 10am; v Hong Kong, Fri July 17, Malahide, 2.15pm; v Jersey, Sun July 19, Malahide, 10am

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THE ICC’s heavy-handedness can be seen this week with its shutting down of the free live scoring of games online.

Not content with selling TV rights, ICC has now decided it can control access to what happens off every ball. It has sold these to OPTA and has banned the popular websites CricketEurope and Cricinfo from scoring the Qualifier.

CricketEurope is an almost entirely voluntary site which barely covers its costs covering the sport all over the continent. It has played a huge role in popularising the game in Ireland and regularly gets a million hits for its informative and spiky commentaries when Ireland play.

The farcical ICC system relies on pre-written lines so you can have whole overs of “C Young to P Mommsen. He picks up a single.” In one game on Monday they had three batsmen at the wicket at once.

CricketEurope appealed to ICC but as with everything with that body, money talks.

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ONE of Ireland’s players has also been slapped down by the governing body.

John Mooney called ICC’s decision to cut the next World Cup “a disgrace” and suggested on Facebook that teams should wear black armbands during this tournament “to highlight the death of associate cricket”.

ICC organisers met the 14 team managers at the weekend and ordered them to tell their players that wearing a black armband would constitute a political statement and anyone doing so would be slapped with a code violation.

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IF ANYONE had any doubts how in touch with the game is ICC, check out this tweet: “He's one of the biggest names at #wt20q, but which is @edjoyce24's favourite cricket venue?”

Abuse rained down on Dubai as tweeters pointed out Joyce had retired from T20 months ago.

“Just goes to show how in touch you are with associate cricket #embarrassing”, wrote Leinster Lightning manager Mark Jones.

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Thursday: Alan Murray Cup: Rush v Malahide, Phoenix v Balbriggan; Leinster Women’s Senior Cup semi-final: YMCA v Merrion, Women’s Div1: Hills v Pembroke, NK v Leinster

Friday: World T20 Qualifier: Ireland v Namibia, Stormont 10am; AMC: Merrion v YMCA

Saturday: Div1: Merrion v Railway, Cork Co v Pembroke, YMCA v Malahide, North Co v Clontarf; Div2: Leinster v Balbriggan, Rush v Phoenix, Terenure v Hills

Sunday: World T20 Qualifier: Ireland v USA, Stormont 10am; Leinster Senior Cup semi-final: Cork Co v Clontarf; Women’s Super350: Typhoons v Dragons, Sydney Parade

Monday: World T20 Qualifier: Ireland v Nepal, Stormont 10am

Tuesday: AMC: YMCA v Leinster; Women’s Div1: NK v Pembroke