Glamorgan Cricket: Andrew Balbirnie hopes to be a T20 hit

Ireland captain Andrew Balbirnie says he hopes to reward Glamorgan's faith in him and contribute to winning team performances in the T20 Blast.

"Teams can't bring over their big overseas players so there's a door open for Irish players," Balbirnie said.

"It's a quality competition and an exciting team."

Balbirnie is included in the opening Glamorgan squad against Worcestershire Rapids on Thursday, 27 August.

The visitors, who were 2018 Blast champions and 2019 runners-up, will be led by Ed Barnard in the absence of England's Moeen Ali.

Balbirnie hit a match-winning one-day century for Ireland against England in his most recent innings, and is likely to take the number three spot left vacant by the unavailability of South African Colin Ingram, who is unable to travel.

"I'm a top-order batsman who likes to score runs quickly and get off to a good start, I like to think I'll be able to do that here and give Glamorgan some wins," he told BBC Sport Wales.

"Colin Ingram's are massive boots to fill, but contributing to wins is what I'm here for. Glamorgan have brought me over and hopefully I can pay them back with some good performances."

Andrew Balbirnie has played in Wales before for Cardiff MCCU

The 29 year old Dublin-born batsman did his university studies in Cardiff and played his early first-class matches as captain of Cardiff MCCU.

"I played here (at Sophia Gardens) a couple of times with the university team so it's a ground I know pretty well.

"I had three great years here, I loved the city and made a lot of friends here that I've been able to meet up with."

Glamorgan will have to find a new opening pair since four-day openers Nick Selman, Charlie Hemphrey and Joe Cooke all miss out on the squad.

They are likely to hand the front-line spinner's role to Andrew Salter, who comes into the squad after missing out on the Bob Willis Trophy, along with Owen Morgan, Prem Sisodiya, Lukas Carey and Balbirnie.

Salter and Balbirnie made their first-class debut in the same Cardiff MCCU team against Somerset in 2012.

"We spent a lot of time together on and off the pitch, Andrew's a great lad, it's been good to catch up with him and I'm sure he'll feel at home in Cardiff. We're both looking forward to getting going," said Salter.

"I ran out of ideas for social media and had to buy a dog to have something to put on there, so it's nice to get some cricket.

"There's been a lot of hard yards behind closed doors, it's always frustrating to miss out on (four-day) squad selection but I've been putting in the hours here at the ground.

"It's going to be different (behind closed doors), but from talking to Andrew (about Ireland versus England), the intensity and energy are going to be there because we're fighting for that result."

Glamorgan, who have twice been at T20 Finals Day, will need to turn round their disappointing 2019 season when they won one and lost eight, as well as a winless Bob Willis Trophy campaign to date.

"We'll be making one or two tactical changes from what we've seen with Glamorgan in the past which really excites me and I'm sure people will be intrigued to see how we go about it," said head coach Matthew Maynard.

Both sides will hope than a poor weather forecast proves inaccurate.

Glamorgan (from): C Cooke (capt), Root, Douthwaite, Balbirnie, Carlson, Taylor, Morgan, Wagg, Salter, Sisodiya, de Lange, van der Gugten, Hogan, Carey.

Worcestershire Rapids (from): Rutherford, Wessels, Haynes, Libby, D'Oliveira, Cox (wk), Whiteley, Mitchell, Barnard (capt), Morris, Tongue, Pennington, Finch