Bracewell to have Ireland talks with Rankin

One of John Bracewell's first tasks as Ireland coach will be trying to persuade Boyd Rankin to abandon his England ambitions and resume his international career at home.

Bracewell will not officially be in charge of Ireland in Malahide on Friday, as he awaits his work permit, but is already considering how to strengthen the team as they look to build on another impressive World Cup display. There is also the motivation of earning a potential Test at Lord's in 2019 through the ICC Test Challenge, the culmination of the Intercontinental Cup which is about to start. The return of Rankin would be a major fillip for Ireland whose pace bowling is their weakest suit.

There was a suggestion that Rankin was set to be included in England's squad for this match before suffering a back injury playing for Warwickshire. Under current regulations, which were amended last year, a player can return to their Associate country after a two-year gap since playing for a Full Member. Rankin's last England was an ODI against Australia on January 17, 2014.

"I will be going to meet him and Dougie Brown. In the very near future, I will go and visit him face to face," Bracewell said. "I am going to sit down with every Irish player currently in the English game, and with their coaches, and work out what is in the interest of both parties."

Whether Rankin would have any long-term part in England's future remains a moot point, and neither is it certain that Peter Moores will be the man in charge of the team beyond this ODI in Ireland with the ECB's new director cricket, favoured to be Andrew Strauss, due to be confirmed shortly and the potential for more fallout after the drawn series in West Indies.

After this ODI, England are then faced with the challenge of a confident New Zealand side before the Ashes later in the summer. Bracewell sees more tough times ahead.

"The New Zealand side are one of the better nations in the world in all forms of the game, and they will give England a tough road," he said. "They are going to be under the pump right from ball one this summer - and I don't envy his task at all.

"They had a period of strength and domination for quite some time. He's got to work out whether those players need to be moved on because they've become complacent, or they've lost their fight or their ambition - or they're starting to try to protect their own personal statistics.

"They've got some tough decisions to make over the next few months, because this is the start of what is a very, very tough summer for them."

England's white-ball cricket remains in a more parlous state than the red-ball version despite the defeat in Barbados and Bracewell picked out a reasonably obvious reason for their inability to match most other nations in the ODI game.

"They pick their side to par scores, and par score means the bowlers have to win more than 50% of the games - that's too much to ask of them under the playing conditions that currently exist," he said. "You have to have a batting line-up that's actually going to get you above par. It's as simple as that. They've failed to do that - and they can't hide from that, because the statistics say that."