Currently, the Indian cricket team is standing at the third position in the ICC T20I rankings, while Ireland is down at No.17. But in Irish conditions, the difference in rankings seems to be small, the visitors have witnessed practice sessions of hardly 2-3 days in the similar conditions. The first of two T20Is could well be a close encounter.
Of the two teams, Ireland is more T20I ready, while their Indian counterparts played just one Test against Afghanistan at home after the IPL 2018. Ireland, meanwhile, was away in the Netherlands playing a triangular T20I series against the hosts and Scotland. Despite the fact that the hosts have had a forgettable time in the Netherlands, but Gary Wilson’s side did beat Scotland in their first game by 46 runs and then had a tied encounter in the second.
Paul Stirling was in particularly good form, hitting half-centuries in both the games against Scotland on his way to a series aggregate of 176 runs. New captain Wilson also did well with the bat, scoring 128 runs, while Andy Balbirnie was in decent run-scoring touch and Simi Singh, the debutant, shone with bat and ball.
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The good thing for India is that they have best of the team to pick from. A batting unit comprising of Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Suresh Raina, Manish Pandey, MS Dhoni, Dinesh Karthik and Manish Pandey is a formidable one in any part of the world.
India also has a solid fast bowling attack led by Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah – the best ODI bowler in the world – Umesh Yadav, Hardik Pandya, the all-rounder, and Siddarth Kaul, who is yet to make his T20I debut. There are spin options in Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, and Washington Sundar too, and it might be tricky for the team management to leave players out.
On paper, India is the superior team. But Ireland is looking forward to improving their rankings as well.
In the T20I cricket history, they have met only once and that was in the 2009 ICC World T20 Group A game at Nottingham where India had comfortably beat them by 8 wickets with 15 balls to spare.
Coming to the upcoming series, while India is the favorite side, their team combination will be interesting to watch. Going with the current form it seems very difficult to pick a particular XI but we are trying best to analyze the squad.
WATCH – Team India Practicing Hard Ahead Of The Ireland T20Is
Rohit and Shikhar are the proven openers, while, the no. 3 position is a doubtful one as in one-off Test against Afghanistan Rahul did the job while, during the South Africa T20I series, Raina was fulfilling the requirement and both are in good form. Kohli seems to be coming at no. 4 as there are too many top-order options already for Team India, followed by none other than Dhoni who did a phenomenal job for CSK in IPL 2018 at no. 5.
Again no. 6 position is a tricky one with two contenders for it, one is Manish Pandey, who has a dismal show in IPL 2018 and the other one is Dinesh Karthik who is enjoying the purple patch in his career. Hardik Pandya is expected to be the first all-rounder followed by Bhuvneshwar Kumar. In the bowling department, Bumrah and Chahal make the direct entry, while the third place is expected to be filled by one of the Yadavs, Kuldeep or Umesh, depending on the conditions.
India’s predicted T20I XI against Ireland:
Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul/ Suresh Raina,Virat Kohli (c), MS Dhoni (wk), Dinesh Karthik/ Manish Pandey, Hardik Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Kuldeep Yadav/Umesh Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Yuzvendra Chahal.
