After being held to a stalemate by the South Africans earlier this month, Team India will hope to return to winning ways when they take on Ireland in a two-match T20I series that marks the beginning of their month-long tour of the United Kingdom.
Despite the vast gulf between the two sides in terms of their positions on the ICC rankings — Ireland are 13 places below top-ranked India in the shortest format — the Men in Blue can ill afford to take the Irish lightly in the upcoming matches, both taking place at The Village in Malahide on the outskirts of capital Dublin.
There's also the factor of India once again going in with a squad as inexperienced as the one that faced the Proteas at home, if not more, and one led by Hardik Pandya — India's fifth skipper across formats this year. Clearly for the Men in Blue, building a team for the upcoming World Cup and picking all-formats captain Rohit Sharma's successor is as much of a focus as is winning the series.
There's also a change in the coaching staff with VVS Laxman taking over as the head coach for this outfit with Rahul Dravid, the regular man for the job, with the seniors who are currently engaged in a practice game with Leicestershire on the other side of the Irish Sea.
The Men in Blue didn't make too many changes to their XI in the series against South Africa in which Rishabh Pant had served as the skipper after KL Rahul was ruled out due to injury. As a result of which, the likes of Umran Malik and Arshdeep Singh ended up warming the benches and ferrying drinks throughout the series, and the clamour for their inclusion in the side will only grow louder this time around.
Additionally, Rahul Tripathi has finally been rewarded for a series of consistent performances both in domestic cricket as well as in the IPL with a maiden India call-up.
💬💬 I have performed well when I have taken up responsibility: #TeamIndia Captain @hardikpandya7 👍#IREvIND pic.twitter.com/qOTX4P1myW
— BCCI (@BCCI) June 25, 2022
Will the visitors look to offer multiple debuts over the course of the next three days? Or adopt a more conservative approach? Skipper Pandya didn't answer the question directly on the eve of the series.
"We want to give opportunities but at the same time, we want to play with our best XI. So there will be a couple of caps given but at the same time it is about making sure that when we go on the field we have the best XI," Pandya said in the pre-match press conference.
Hosts Ireland, on the other hand, haven't faced a lot of quality opposition for quite some time now. After getting knocked out of contention for the Super 12s in last year's T20 World Cup, the Irish have only faced West Indies in the Caribbean in January among the Test-playing nations. However, the series against India marks the beginning of a long run of fixtures against top Test sides, with teams such as New Zealand, South Africa, and Afghanistan to follow after India.
And the hosts will hope to commence a blockbuster of a summer with a fighting performance against the side that is heavily favoured to come out on top in both fixtures.
Ireland had last faced India in a T20I series back in the summer of 2018, ahead of Virat Kohli and Co's marathon tour of England, and lost both T20Is by convincing margins. While they had faced a full-strength Indian side that included the now-retired MS Dhoni back then, the relative inexperience of this Indian outfit should give them some hope.
Lest we forget, beating higher-ranked sides isn't something novel to Andy Balbirnie's men. Just ask Pakistan as well as the 'Old Enemy' England.
Squads:
Ireland: Paul Stirling, Andrew Balbirnie (c), Gareth Delany, Harry Tector, Lorcan Tucker (wk), Curtis Campher, George Dockrell, Andy McBrine, Mark Adair, Barry McCarthy, Joshua Little, Craig Young, Stephen Doheny, Conor Olphert
India: Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ishan Kishan (wk), Suryakumar Yadav, Sanju Samson, Dinesh Karthik, Hardik Pandya (c), Axar Patel, Harshal Patel, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Avesh Khan, Deepak Hooda, Venkatesh Iyer, Rahul Tripathi, Arshdeep Singh, Ravi Bishnoi, Umran Malik
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