Ireland will bank on their experienced batters Andy Balbirnie, Paul Stirling and Harry Tector to recover from the pummeling given by India and get their T20 World Cup campaign back on track when they face a dangerous Canada on Friday. (Prediction|More Cricket News)
Playing in their eighth T20 World Cup, Ireland have often struggled to make an impression in the event despite several of their key players playing in English county. In fact, they have made it to the 'Super 8' only once in 2009.
Balbirnie and captain Stirling, who have a combined experience of more than 250 T20Is, were unable to give the side a decent start on a difficult pitch at the Nassau Country Stadium, even as rival skipper Rohit Sharma and Rishabh Pant showed the way with their batting master-class while guiding India to a huge win.
Tector, a veteran of 77 T20Is, too failed to kick on as Ireland were bowled out for a sub-100 total by the disciplined Indian bowlers, and they require an urgent turnaround.
Ireland will be playing their second match at this venue inside two days and they will be keen to execute the learnings from that.
World Cup newcomers Canada, on the other hand, too are coming off a big defeat against the United States in a high-scoring Group A match in Dallas.
Canada, can, however derive strength from their T20 World Cup Qualifier match against Ireland in 2019. In that match, the Maple Leafers inflicted a crushing 10-wicket defeat on the Irishmen.
In skipper Navneet Dhaliwal, Canada have a veteran top-order batter who was a part of that 2019 victory, and a lot will be riding on him. Canada will also take heart from the defeat against the USA because they had posted an imposing 194 against them and would look for an encore.
Squads
Ireland: Paul Stirling (captain), Mark Adair, Ross Adair, Andy Balbirnie, Curtis Campher, Gareth Delany, George Dockrell, Graham Hume, Josh Little*, Barry McCarthy, Neil Rock (wk), Harry Tector, Lorcan Tucker (wk), Ben White, Craig Young.
Canada: Saad Bin Zafar (captain), Aaron Johnson, Ravinderpal Singh, Navneet Dhaliwal, Kaleem Sana, Dilon Heyliger, Jeremy Gordon, Nikhil Dutta, Pargat Singh, Nicholas Kirton, Rayyankhan Pathan, Junaid Siddiqui, Dilpreet Bajwa, Shreyas Movva and Rishiv Joshi.
Match Starts at 8 pm IST.
