Rankin ruled out ofIreland squad for years

The Bready man, who announced his retirement from playing for his country last year but the door was always left open, however he moved a step closer to fulfilling his ambition to play Test cricket, as he was part of England’s T/20 side which narrowly lost to New Zealand last night (Tuesday) meaning he can’t be involved with Phil Simmons’ side for a number of years.

Rankin, who took a wicket in his first over last night, is also part of England’s 14-man squad for the four-day LV=Challenge match with Essex, which starts on Sunday, as Andy Flower’s team step up their preparation for the upcoming Ashes series against Australia, which gets under way at Trent Bridge, next month.

The Warwickshire man, who is likely to feature again for England in tomorrow night’s second T20 game against New Zealand, has been in around the current England squad, in fact he was part of the recent one day team, but didn’t get selected.

However this time it was a different story and the 28-year-old made his competitive debut for the Englishmen at the Oval last evening, with fellow Irish man Eoin Morgan his skipper.

“It’s really good to get in the squad,” he stated.

“It was great to be around the squad last time, just being around players you normally see on television all the time and even though it was just for four or five days it was a great experience.

“It was also a great experience to work with the bowling coach David Saker and because of that it was a lot easier this time around going into the squad.”

Only this year the big seamer decided to call it a day in terms of playing for his country, as he went in the hunt of trying to break into England’s test set-up

“Obviously it was a really hard decision (to step down from Ireland) but the main thing for me was that I wanted to play Test cricket and this is hopefully just another step on the way.

“I have put that Ireland decision to bed now and I’m just concentrating on Warwickshire and trying to get as many games for England as I can as well.”

One man who would have played a major role in bringing Rankin into the England set-up, would have been their one-day coach Ashley Giles, who is also Warwickshire’s director of cricket.

“Obviously I know (England one-day coach Ashley Giles) pretty well and he knows me pretty well. He has known me for the last five years since I have been at Warwickshire so yeah it’s a bonus in terms of that we both know each other really well.

“He knows what I can do and hopefully I can sort of show the rest of the world what I can do as well.”

The talented bowler joins five other pace bowlers in the squad to face Essex - James Anderson, Tim Bresnan, Stuart Broad, Steven Finn and Graham Onions.