India vs Ireland, ICC Women’s World T20 2016 Warm-Up Match, Preview: Mithali Raj and Co aim to begin with a win

India women take on Ireland women in the first warm-up match of ICC Women’s World T20 2016  at M Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bangalore on Thursday. India and Ireland will be led by their regular skippers, Mithali Raj and Isobel Joyce respectively. While India received a direct entry into the ICC World T20, the Irish side had gone through the ICC Women’s World T20 Qualifier which they had won. There were two groups, with Ireland topping Group B. They were teamed up with Zimbabwe, China and Netherlands and they beat all those three sides to top the table. Ireland won the final on the last ball against Bangladesh. READ: ICC World T20 2016 good opportunity to promote women’s cricket in India: Mithali Raj

India women next face Sri Lanka women and Ireland face Bangladesh before the main event commences on March 15. The opening day will again see India in action, locking horns with Bangladesh and with the second game going to be between New Zealand and Sri Lanka.

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India surely has an upper hand heading into the contest. While India played two bilateral Twenty20 International (T20I) series, Ireland’s last international series was the ICC Women’s World T20 Qualifier that was played back in December 2015. Meanwhile, India has been on a role, first with a historic win Down Under in both T20I and One-Day International (ODI) series win against Asutralia, which was followed by a home series victory over Sri Lanka. Mithali Raj and Co white-washed the Lankans in both ODI and T20I series.

Ireland’s last bilateral series was against Australia, where they finished on the losing side with defeats in all the three games. Unlike Ireland, India won their T20I series against the same opponents 2-1 before winning the ODI series also 2-1 in January.

Recently, Mithali was asked if the Indian women team can finally go par with the likes of Sania Mirza and Saina Nehwal in terms of popularity in India. “It should, and there is a possibility if our matches are televised. That attracts a lot of brands and corporate sponsorships for individual players. If only a few games are televised and you don’t have a follow-up, like no live coverage of the Sri Lanka series after the Australia series, where we did so well, things will not improve,” she said.

Squads:

India: Mithali Raj (c), Ekta Bisht, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Jhulan Goswami, Thirush Kamini, Harmanpreet Kaur, Veda Krishnamurthy, Smriti Mandhana, Niranjana Nagarajan, Shikha Pandey, Anuja Patil, Deepti Sharma, Vellaswamy Vanitha, Sushma Verma, Poonam Yadav

Ireland: Isobel Joyce (c), Cath Dalton, Laura Delany, Kim Garath, Jennifer Gray, Cecelia Joyce, Shauna Kavanagh, Amy Kenealy, Gaby Lewis, Kate McKenna, Ciara Metcalfe, Lucy O’Reilly, Clare Shillington, Mary Waldron