'I'm really proud how far the girls have come'

Irish women's team head coach Ed Joyce is a proud man after Ireland Women effected a clean sweep over Bangladesh in the three-match T20Is in Sylhet.

In a chat with Cricbuzz, Joyce spoke about his journey with the women's team and his plan for the upcoming tour of India.

It's been five years since you have been guiding the Irish women's team. Can you tell us about the journey?

I've really enjoyed the role over the last five and a half years. I'm proud of the work we've done and really proud of the players who have put in the work. There's been a quite a load of change in personnel in that time. And obviously, qualifying for the World Cup and some good wins in the last three or four years. After a tough qualifying campaign where we lost to Scotland, to come out from that and beat Sri Lanka at home in an ODI series and also to compete really well with England and get a few wins there.

What was your biggest challenge as a coach?

I think the biggest challenge has been bringing new players in the team. We had a lot more experience four-five years ago. But it wasn't a professional setup. We only had one or two semi-professional players and now we have seven or eight full time players and few are on education contract during college or school. So it's become a more professional and full time setup. When I started, it was only me and the physio and manager (coaching staff). And now we have three full time coaches, physio and managers. I think it's a bigger and more professional group. I think the transition from non-professional to professional group has been the challenge.

What are the areas you want to improve?

Spin is really important in women's cricket, in all cricket and I think we struggled in that area for the last five years. We have good seam bowlers and we got some good batters in our own conditions. The biggest area to go for us is fielding and athleticism. And in spin bowling. That's why we brought in two young girls who are bowling spin at the moment. They have a lot of talent, so we see them as future and we give them the opportunities and we need to develop more and more spinners. And I think our fielding wasn't up to the standards. I think we still have a long way to go. That's probably the two biggest areas (to improve)."

You have got some senior cricketers and some young girls? Does that bring the perfect balance? How do you rate Gaby Lewis as a skipper?

It's always important to have senior players in the group. We don't have many as we had before. We have Laura Delany who previously captained the side and Arlene Kelly who played for New Zealand and for us as well. It's important to have those players from whom the younger girls can learn. We also have some players in their mid 20s who have played a lot of cricket and Gaby Lewis is one of those. I think Gaby is the right person to captain this team now. And the way she plays, she is a very aggressive batter. She is very ambitious and wants to move forward with the team. Laura did a brilliant job captaining the team for eight years. It's a long time to captain and was the right time to move on with Gaby.

How do you rate Amy Hunter as a future prospect?

Amy Hunter is a fantastic talent. She is still very young but has played for three years now. So she has some experience in her. She is very ambitious about where she wants to go with her cricket. She is a fantastic talent with the bat. Don't want to hype her too much because it's tough to handle all as a 19-year-old but she is a very important all-rounder for us. She is a good wicketkeeper as well and she bats in the top three in both formats. When she learns to pull her emotions in between games, she will be a big force to reckon."

Do you feel the Bangladesh series will help you as your next destination is India?

Yes I would hope so (playing in Bangladesh help in India). You always need context to understand as to what you need to practice when you're at home and how you're going to your training block. The girls needed to understand how to play on slower and lower pitches than we're used to. We'll go back home and do some training and hopefully, prepare for the India series really well. Rajkot might be slightly different than Dhaka and Sylhet. Probably pretty similar in terms of facing spinners. Interested to see how we do in that series. I am hoping we get a couple big scores against India and really test them."