Men in Blue look to keep winning momentum, Ireland aim to make big statement
You would say India’s penultimate match of the league stage against Ireland should be a walk in the park for a unit which has downed all the high and mighty teams in its group and is sitting on the top of the table for now. But besides all the oft-repeated reasons, like carrying on with the momentum, there is one more that walked in on match eve — Bangladesh qualified for the quarterfinals beating England and would be playing its first knockout match at Melbourne.
Though India is atop Group B and has all but booked its flight to Melbourne, having a bad outing against a much revived Ireland looking for a fight to reach the next round, and Zimbabwe next, may just alter the route to Sydney — and to Sri lanka — something that skipper MS Dhoni would willingly avoid.
On paper, there should not be a hiccup before India moves to Auckland, but it cannot be ignored that Ireland has virtually shrugged the tag of minnows (they have the same points as South Africa and Pakistan) to emerge as a fighting fit unit for the next stage of the competition, winning three of the four games it has played till now. In contention with Pakistan and West Indies for the last two qualifying spots from Group B, the Irish would be coming in with all guns loaded in their ambitious bid to derail the current superstars in blue.
“We’ll try and shake them up a bit with the bowling in the first 10 overs and like any other game of cricket we will stick to our game plan,” Ireland’s skipper William Porterfield said on match eve. Brave words one would say, more so as Ireland has not had much exposure in cricket and very little against India, having played just two ODIs (2007 and 2011) and losing both.
Though Dhoni’s men have had little time to acclimatise to the conditions and would be playing its first match of the tournament in the much smaller grounds of New Zealand, the bowling unit has learnt to innovate, adjust and yet be conventional. As Mohit Sharma said, “as professional cricketers we know what to do.”
The conditions in New Zealand are far different from Australia. The ball swings more and has a lesser bounce. The boundaries are pretty small and that’s where the bowlers’ real strength would be tested, something which Mohit admitted has not happened so far.
Though Dhoni firmly said at Perth that “the bench strength will continue to warm the bench”, swing bowlers like Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Stuart Binny would be just what the doctor ordered for Seddon Park.
Both were consistently bowling at the nets to Rohit Sharma and Suresh Raina on match eve but with Mohammad Shami, Umesh Yadav and Mohit Sharma leaving no reason to be rested, it looks like the benchers would have to wait a while longer — unless Dhoni replaces Ravindra Jadeja with Binny.
All said, India has the edge, the momentum, the expertise and the experience — all more than Ireland — and there should not be an explainable reason if it loses on Tuesday.