India eye victorious start to T20 World Cup as Ireland challenge awaits

Team India is all set to roar as they take the yard against Ireland in their opening game of the 2024 T20 World Cup. After crashing out of the preceding edition of the tournament with a loss to England in the semifinal, the Men in Blue will be hopeful of redeeming themselves.

A lot will be relying on the Indian top-order that comprises Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav and Rishabh Pant. Whether Yashasvi Jaiswal or Shivam Dube make the cut or not shall remain a question to be deliberated. However, the return of an in-form Jasprit Bumrah coupled with the combination of Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal will certainly add some serious venom to the Indian bowling unit.

Ireland will be coming to this fixture riding on some well-deserved confidence that saw them defeating Pakistan, Netherlands and Scotland in recent times. They have a strong batting unit featuring the likes of Andrew Balbirnie, Harry Tector and certainly their hard-hitting skipper, Paul Stirling. The availability of Joshua Little who was a part of IPL 2024 and Mark Adair makes their bowling unit, one to watch out for.

Venue Watch:

Unlike the IPL, the ground and the pitch conditions in the Nassau International County Stadium are entirely different. The ground is a sand-based one which makes it pretty soft, eventually throwing fears of certain niggles to the players as pointed out by Rahul Dravid. 

Also the boundaries are pretty much bigger which makes it slightly difficult for the batters to send them crashing out of the park. The surface as seen so far will remain the same as it is a drop-in pitch and has exhibited signs of spongy bounce throughout. The batters will have to be smart enough while the bowlers need to resort to their discipline to land them handsome rewards.

Head to Head:

Matches played: 7

India – 7

Ireland – 0

Match Details:

Match – India vs Ireland

Venue: Nassau International County Stadium, New York

Date: 5th June, 2024

Time: 8:00 PM

World Cup face-offs:

Matches played: 1

India: 1

Ireland: 0

Squads:

India: Rohit Sharma (c), Hardik Pandya (vc), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant (wk), Sanju Samson (wk), Shivam Dube, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Arshdeep Singh, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohd. Siraj

Ireland: Paul Stirling (Capt), Mark Adair, Ross Adair, Andrew Balbirnie, Curtis Campher, Gareth Delany, George Dockrell, Graham Hume, Josh Little, Barry McCarthy, Neil Rock, Harry Tector, Lorcan Tucker, Ben White, Craig Young.