OdishaLIVE Bureau
Men in Blue are back after IPL and before the start of England Tour, this is a much needed match practice while Ireland would be looking for a major upset.
- India look to start off their English tour with Ireland in a two match T20 series.
- First T20 match to be played today at 8:30 PM IST
- Ireland can cause an upset but India remain the favourites
India start off their English tour with a two match T20 series with the first match being played today at The Village in Dublin, Ireland. They later travel to England for a three match T20 series, three match One Day series and a five match Test series. For team India, it is their first major T20 series since the Nidahas Trophy in March and the team looks almost the same.
TEAM NEWS
INDIA
Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan will open the innings with Virat Kohli coming in at No.3. Looking at current form, Lokesh Rahul will be the likely candidate to fill in at No.4. Dhoni and Hardik Pandya will take up the No.6 and No.7 positions. Hence, it will be interesting to see who takes up the No. 5 position. The likely candidates are Suresh Raina, Manish Pandey and Dinesh Karthik. Since his return to Indian team Suresh Raina has averaged just around 21.33. Manish Pandey also, looks unlikely to be picked. On the other hand, Dinesh Karthik, who is enjoying his purple patch, is most likely to take up the No.5 position. Among spinners skipper Virat Kohli is likely to pick both leg spinners Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav. Bhuveneshwar Kumar and Jasprit Bumrah will be leading the pace attack with Umesh Yadav also looking to get a game.
IRELAND
As for the Ireland side they have their skipper Gary Wilson and would expect him to lead the batting order. “Anyone can beat anyone else and that’s the beauty of sport and cricket, we have had some great results against England in Bengaluru and against Pakistan in the Caribbean. So we will go in with the belief that we can turn them over “, he said in an interview. In bowling, Boyd Rankin will lead the attack. The tall Irishman will look to use his height as an advantage and cause the Indian batsmen problems with short pitched deliveries. They also have Joshua Little who can bowl in excess of 135 km/hr and would look to cause trouble. As per their batting order they have Paul Stirling the explosive middle order batsmen, Simi Singh, Andy Balbirnie and the experienced Kevin O’ Brien who will look to put up big scores on the small grounds in Ireland. Their former captain and experienced William Porterfield is also expected to be back in the line up. India also have to look out for Indian born off spinner Simranjit Singh who will be looking ahead to face his home nation. He can bowl off spin and has a strike rate of over 150 in T20s often the perfect combination in this kind of format.
PITCH REPORT AND WEATHER
The pitch is batsman friendly with the ground being small which states that it is batsmen friendly and a lot of runs is expected to be scored. There is bit of hint that the ball might hit the deck and bounce which gives a little bit of optimism to the bowlers but most likely the batsmen are expected to get the better of them. The weather is expected to be clear but as we know, we can’t predict exactly if it’s going to rain or not
FORM AND STATS
India come into this match, having won two out of their last three matches and losing one. Ireland, on the other hand have lost all of their last three matches and will be looking to change their fortunes against India. India plays Ireland after 9 long years. The pair played each other back in the 2009 T20 World Cup which went in India’s favour.
Over all it will be a good match practice for the Men in Blue before the long English tour.
(Story: Raunaq Dash, Edit: Sriram Singh Rattan)
