India vs Ireland 2018 T20I: Virat Kohli will look to start English summer with a bang

The Indian cricket team have a full-strength squad to pick from with captain Virat Kohli back in the team after nursing a neck injury.

Sports News : India will begin their preparation for England tour by playing two T20Is against Ireland. The first of the two T20Is matches will be played at Malahide Cricket Club Ground or The Village in Dublin on Wednesday, June 27, 2018. The Indian cricket team have a full-strength squad to pick from, with captain Virat Kohli back in the team after nursing a neck injury. The men in blue will use the two T20Is against Ireland to get acclimatised to the English conditions as they have struggled to counter the swing and overcast conditions in England in the past and there is no better way to prepare than get a few games under the belt, and there is no place more suitable than Ireland.

However, the Ireland Cricket team are no pushovers and have T20 specialists like Paul Stirling and Kevin O’Brien in the team. Still, India will be expected to come through unscathed before they begin their England tour starting July 3. The two teams have played just one T20I in the past, during 2009 T20 World Cup which India won by 15 runs.

How Virat Kohli and Co will look at two T20Is against Ireland

For India, the two T20Is against Ireland will mark the onset of a long English summer for Virat Kohli & co, and perhaps it was a marker of this crucial impending assignment that India decided to stay on and practice in London on Monday, reports PTI. Since the tour of South Africa, this is the first time a full-strength Indian team will be seen in action. Kohli, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah and MS Dhoni were rested for the T20 tri-series in Sri Lanka in March. The quadruple also missed the one-off Test against Afghanistan in Bengaluru recently. After a brilliant performance in IPL 2018, KL Rahul got another chance in limited over cricket and Ajinkya Rahane's omission from the ODI squad means that he is once again a contender for the number four spot when the three-match series against England begins on July 12.

Virat Kohli's concern: The middle order

With Rahul in contention for a starting spot in the middle order, Manish Pandey, Suresh Raina and Dinesh Karthik will be left jostling for two spots. As part of the full-strength Indian side, the three had featured in the T20 series against South Africa. Raina had been used as a pinch-hitting, aggressive number three option, but the current situation might warrant a re-think.

India playing 11 Probables: Virat Kohli (c), Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul, Suresh Raina, Dinesh Karthik, MS Dhoni (wk), Hardik Pandya, Yuzvendra Chahal, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah

Ireland playing 11 Probables: Gary Wilson (c & wk), Kevin O'Brien, William Porterfield, Paul Stirling, Simi Singh, George Dockrell, Boyd Rankin, James Shannon, Stuart Thompson, Andrew Balbirnie, Peter Chase

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