Not much, according the bookies who have the Boys in Green at 12/1 to beat the favourites in their opening Group A match of the T20 World Cup – but recent results and form suggest a closer contest could be on the cards at the Nassau County International Stadium.
Add in the variable of a ‘drop-in’ pitch that was grown in Australia and transported around the world, and if skipper Paul Stirling wins the toss and bowls it could be game on – in every sense – at 3:30pm Irish time.
On-field preparations could not have gone better, with a morale-boosting victory over Pakistan at Clontarf followed by an unbeaten tri-series against Scotland and the Netherlands in The Hague, including two gritty single-figure wins – always a sign of team with belief.
The top seven pick themselves and have all contributed to the wins, while Mark Adair has emerged as a genuine all-rounder at No 8, and Josh Little is back from IPL duty to add a cutting edge to the seam attack.
Little, who earned his two life-changing IPL contracts on the back of performances at the last T20 World Cup in Australia, including a hat-trick against New Zealand, will be keen to prove himself over again after playing just one match for Gujarat Titans in this year’s event.
Off the field, things have not gone so smoothly with the squad suffering a horribly delayed charter flight from Florida to New York at the weekend that meant a 5am arrival at the team hotel, and finding access restricted to the venue ahead of tomorrow’s game.
Sound familiar? At the 2015 World Cup, William Porterfield’s team endured a 4,000km trek from Hobart to Hamilton in New Zealand, involving two flights and a long bus journey, before checking in at 1am on the eve of their game against India.
Stirling, one of the survivors from that tournament, will already have known that the biggest of the big boys in world cricket call the shots in ICC tournaments, getting all the help that can be legitimately given.
India are one of the four major international sides yet to be beaten by Ireland – Australia, New Zealand and Sri Lanka are the others – but results have been getting closer in recent times.
Two years ago in Malahide, Andy Balbirnie took the Boys in Green to within a boundary of chasing down 225-7 while last year Ireland got even closer losing a rain-affected match by only two runs via the DLS Method.
Meanwhile, Alice Tector, the 16-year-old sister of international star Harry, is one of 23 women and 25 men awarded professional contracts for 2024-5, announced today by Cricket Ireland.