IND vs IRE Weather Report (Source: Ireland cricket)
India will take on Ireland in their T20 World Cup opener. The team comes into the game after a comfortable win over Bangladesh in the T20 World Cup warm-up game. India would eye a winning start to the campaign, however, Ireland could not be taken lightly. They recently defeated Pakistan in one of the T20I matches and are very capable of pulling off an upset against top teams.
India and Ireland are clubbed in Group A along with Pakistan, USA, and Canada. The top two teams from each group go through the Super 8s. India and Pakistan are favourites to progress to the next round, however, the teams can’t afford to drop points against weaker teams. A washout would mean that the teams would have to share points with the lesser-ranked teams and that would be disastrous.
The weather in New York in the build-up to the T20 World Cup has not been great, with a few warm-up games getting washed out. However, Indian fans can breathe a sigh of relief as there is no rain predicted during the India v Ireland game. There will be a bit of a cloud cover but rain is likely to stay away from the game.
Meanwhile, Sri Lanka was shot down for just 77 runs in the previous game played at the venue and that would put India in a bit of a selection conundrum. India were mulling over playing three spinners, however, the pacers also got much help on the pitch, with Anrich Nortje picking four wickets for seven runs. However, India should back their strength and play three spinners, with Bumrah and Siraj as pacers and Hardik as third seamer.
Predicted XI: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rohit Sharma (C), Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj
India squad: 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