Preview: 1st T20 India vs Ireland

India will play 2 T20s against Ireland at The Village in Dublin.

These will be held on 26th and 28th June.

VVS Laxman will take over from head coach Rahul Dravid for these two matches as the latter is with the Indian test squad in England.

Hardik Pandya will skipper the Indian side and Bhuvneshwar Kumar will be the vice captain.

Andy Balbirnie will be the Ireland captain.

Team News

There will be some changes in the Indian squad as many regulars like Rishabh Pant and Shreyas Iyer are in England for Test match duties.

Dinesh Karthik is most likely to keep wickets in his place.

Kishan is likely to open the innings with Ruturaj Gaikwad.

Gaikwad will hope to turn things around against Ireland and book a place in the T20 World Cup squad.

Suryakumar Yadav who is back after injury is set to replace Iyer at number 3.

It will be a toss up between Sanju Samson and Rahul Tripathi for the number four spot.

Samson is more experienced but Tripathi might get the nod due to his exploits in he IPL.

The Dublin wicket is not known to aid spin so Arshdeep Singh might replace Axar Patel.

Harshal Patel and Avesh Khan are certainties after their superb performances against South Africa.

Umran Malik might miss out but could get a chance in the 2nd T20 match.

Ireland, on the other, have given a maiden call-up to top-order batter Stephen Doheny as Kevin O’Brien has retired.

Fast bowler Conor Olphert is the other uncapped player in the squad.

Paul Stirling is fresh from scoring runs in the T20 Blast and Ireland will be expecting a lot from him.

The last time Ireland took the field, it was way back in February this year against UAE in the final of the ICC men’s T20 World Cup Qualifier where they lost by 7 wickets.

Harry Tector was the top run scorer for Ireland in the series with 116 runs at 38.6.

Paul Stirling also made 116 at an average of 23.20 while Gareth Delany contributed 113.

Andy Balbirnie is probably Ireland’s most important player as he has been relatively consistent.

He has scored the most runs in the last 10 T20 Internationals for Ireland with 250 runs at a strike rate of 141.24.

Lorcan Tucker is behind him with 237 runs at 33.86.

Mark Adair has been the main wicket taker for the side in recent times.

Pitch report

The pitch in Dublin favors the team batting second.

Out of 14 matches played here, the chasing team has won eight times.

There have been three 180-plus first-innings totals in the last five T20Is in the Village stadium.

The highest score here is Scotland’s 252 for 3 against Netherlands in September 2019.

It is expected to be a good batting wicket.

Head to Head record

The Men in Blue have beaten the Irish team in all three of their meetings in the shortest format.

Back in 2018, India defeated Ireland 2-0 at the same venue in Dublin.

Ireland Predicted Playing XIs

Paul Stirling, Andy Balbirnie (c), Gareth Delany, Harry Tector, Lorcan Tucker, Stephen Doheny, Andy McBrine, Curtis Campher, Mark Adair, Barry McCarthy, Josh Little

India Predicted Playing XIs

Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ishan Kishan, Suryakumar Yadav, Sanju Samson/Rahul Tripathi, Hardik Pandya (c), Dinesh Karthik (wk), Harshal Patel, Umran Malik/Arshdeep Singh, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Avesh Khan, Yuzvendra Chahal