 India will take on Ireland in the 22nd game of the Cricket World Cup
2011, which will be played at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore.
This has the potential of being one of the more exciting encounters given the
kind of the manner in which the tournament has been played so far. India
have played two games so far, bowled horribly in the two and yet, come back
reasonably unscathed with three points from two games.
Click for Live Score Card of India Vs Ireland
In their first game against Bangladesh, they were lucky to rake up 370 and
then the bowling conceded more than 280. In the second game, it was worse. For
one, the Indians managed to get to 338, but should have got to much more. Then,
the bowling was so poor that the English managed to tie the game and leave the
Indians with three points and at the third position now.
On the other hand, Ireland are in a bit of a surprising situation. They were
good in their bowling against Bangladesh when they restricted the side to only
205 but failed to get to the total - the batting being reduced to 175 odd. In
their second game, the bowling was poor and the English raked up 328 but Kevin
O'Brien smashed an innings of substance - a century off 50 balls to ensure that
the game was won.
That England game was played at Bangalore where one has seen that batting second
is much easier than batting first. This will mean that the sides will look to
ensure that they win toss and elect to field first and hope for a bit of a dew
to make life difficult for the bowling side.
India will beware that it is a strong batting that Ireland has, especially
when one sees that the Indians have a bowling line-up very weak. There is a
good chance that the Indians will change things around - probably get in R Ashwin
in place of Piyush Chawla. Chawla had gone for a lot of runs and that
made things difficult for the side in the game.
On the other hand, Ireland will hope that their top-order performs rather well.
The reason for this is that they cannot expect Kevin O'Brien to keep pounding
the bowlers around the park, making it imperative for the real batsmen to get
going. India will be favourites to win it but will need to be on their toes
in a potential banana-skin.
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