ICC Women’s World Cup Qualifiers 2017: Confident India face Ireland in crucial clash

With consecutive victories in the kitty, Mithali Raj and her confident bunch of women are ready to take on Ireland Women in Match No. 11 of the ICC Women’s World Cup Qualifiers 2017 on Friday. Scheduled to be the played at the P Sara Oval in Colombo, this match will decide if India will maintain their sole dominance in the Group A points table or will Ireland be able to tame the subcontinent big guns, sharing the same points with their second victory in the third match. With just three more games to go for the two sides, this is going to be one of the most high-intensity games of the group stage. Women’s World Cup Qualifier 2017: India not taking Ireland lightly, says Mithali Raj

India’s positive has been their consistency so far in the tournament. In their opening fixture, they impressed everyone posting a dominant victory over another heavyweight in the group, Sri Lanka. Compared to that, their next challenge against Thailand looked to be a cakewalk and Indian Eves excelled as usual, restricting the opponents  to a paltry score of 55 and reaching the target with over 30 overs and 9 wickets in hand. However, Ireland will be a tough task for the team and they will surely miss their veteran pacer Jhulan Goswami, who has been ruled out of the tournament. Shikha Pandey will lead the pace attack and it will be interesting to see who Mithali goes for as the second pacer. Indian spinners are in a brilliant form and so are the batters, leaving the team with very little to worry about. ICC Women’s World Cup Qualifier 2017: Points table

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After starting the campaign on a positive note defeating Zimbabwe Women, Ireland Women received their first defeat in the following match against Sri Lanka Women. This will rather be a mental boost for India, who have defeated Sri Lanka already. However, Ireland will have to gather all the  confidence and get back their momentum. While they scored in excess of 200 runs in the first, they were bundled out for 93 in the next, exposing their weakness in facing a potential spin-attack. However, they can aim at India’s pace attack and play the spinners a bit carefully in order to achieve a good score.

Squads:

India Women: Mithali Raj (c), Ekta Bisht, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Mansi Joshi, Thirush Kamini, Harmanpreet Kaur, Veda Krishnamurthy, Mona Meshram, Shikha Pandey, Poonam Yadav, Deepti Sharma, Devika Vaidya, Sushma Verma (wk), Soni Yadav

Ireland Women: Laura Delany (c), Kim Garth, Cecelia Joyce, Isobel Joyce, Shauna Kavanagh, Me Kendal, Amy Kenealy, Gaby Lewis, Robyn Lewis, Loise McCarthy, Ciara Mecalfe, Lucy O’Reilly, Clare Shillington, Mary Waldron (wk)

Time: 10:00 am local | 10:00 am IST | 4:30 am GMT