The pitch for the India vs Ireland Group A match can become a topic of discussion. In its international cricket debut, the Nassau County International Stadium in New York produced a pitch that made life difficult for the batters. Sri Lanka were bowled out for 77. That’s not the only unusual part. They took 19.1 overs to score those. South Africa had to struggle for 16.2 overs to chase it down.
India won’t exactly walk into unknown territories on Wednesday. Their only warm-up match leading into the World Cup was on this ground against Bangladesh. While India’s top-order struggled to score quickly in the beginning on a sluggish track, Rishabh Pant and Hardik Pandya’s blitz pushed India’s total past 180. Bangladesh didn’t have the same return. Even their most experienced batter, Shakib Al Hasan, struggled to get the boundaries. India stopped Bangladesh at 122.
If the conditions are similar, then another low-scoring fixture can be in the offing. Till Tuesday, India captain Rohit Sharma didn’t know which pitch would be used for their match against Ireland. “There is a square of four pitches. I don’t know which wicket we will be playing on. So, who knows – the wicket that we are playing tomorrow might be a good wicket to bat on. So, it’s all about adapting,” he told reporters on the eve of the match.
“I didn’t get to watch the game. I was a little busy with my family who had arrived yesterday. But no, certainly I know how the pitch played, hearing from my other teammates, and we’ve got a lot of guys in the team and the support staff were talking about what happened in that game.
“But, again, all I can say is we’ll make the best decision possible for these conditions, whatever the best level we feel. We’ll just go to the ground and have a look at the pitch,” he said.
India have all bases covered: Rohit Sharma
The outfield is also a concern. When an aerial shot lands in the deep, the ball tends to pluck and spin backward. “Certainly, a lot of things are very uncertain in terms of the outfield and how the pitch will play. Like I said just now, it’s all about adapting and getting used to that condition real fast, because you don’t have too much time. And if the pitch plays well, we certainly know what to do on pitches that are playing well. When the pitch is doing a little bit, we know exactly what we need to do as a batting group. And also, the bowling group as well. It’s just not about batting. When you have a pitch like that, which is slightly helpful for the bowlers, bowlers have an important role to play as well,” Rohit added.
The Indian captain, however, has trust in his team. He said India has all bases covered to tackle different conditions. “We’ve got balance in all departments, whether if we need seamers, we’ve got seamers, we have good spin bowlers as well. So yeah, we’ll decide based on the pitch. Again, we’ve got to go and see all of that, including the dimension of the ground,” he said.