Barry McCarthy says he is full of confidence after a busy winter and is looking forward to trying to seal regular place in the four-day side.
He was part of a strong Ireland squad that toured Bangladesh in October, before moving on to Dubai for an ODI series against Afghanistan and a triangular series against Scotland and the UAE.
In March he was part of Ireland’s World Cup qualifying campaign in Zimbabwe, where the Irish fell just short of a spot in the main tournament next year.
Overall he took 22 ODI wickets at 21.32 apiece and the seamer feels it has prepared him well for the season ahead.
“I am [confident] yeah! I’ve got a bit of cricket behind me and coming back here it’s been a bit difficult to get outdoors training,” he said.
“We’ve definitely made the most of a difficult task. The pitches haven’t been ready but we’ve been bowling on grass to the batters who’ve been batting on mats, we’ve just sort of got on with it.”
The Irishman took 24 wickets in his five appearances last year at a cost of 27.21 and hopes that he can build on that this season.
He also feels that some of the white ball skills he picked up over the winter will be transferable to the four-day game.
“Not much really changes, the fundamentals are the same, whether its red or white ball, especially when you take the new ball up top.
“You can swing it with the red ball, you can swing it with the white ball, the same skills apply. It’s just about in a red ball game being slightly more disciplined and sticking to some simpler skills for a longer period of time.
“I had a little bit of Championship cricket at the end of last season and I really enjoyed it. It was disappointing that I broke my thumb at the end of the season and it was cut short.
“Hopefully I can stake a claim in the first couple of games of the season and cement my position for the summer. Hopefully plenty of wickets to come for the summer as well.”
McCarthy was equally as confident when asked whether he had ambitions of promotion for the side.
“Oh always! There’d be no point in taking part in the season, to be brutally honest, if you’re not striving for all three titles, not just promotion.
“Promotion is obviously what we want to strive for in the red ball game, but in the white ball game we want to get to Finals Day in the T20 and win the One Day competition.
“I would love to be able to sit here and tell you that we want to go every single game this season unbeaten, that’s probably the aim. Whether that’s realistic or not is a different thing but we’re really striving to have success this year and get back to where this club really should be.”