Day 2 of ICC T20 World Cup 2021 continues when Bangladesh will play their 2nd warm-up game with Ireland. Both teams have performed very good in the T20 Cricket in recent times. Bangladesh is especially enjoying their golden period of T20 Cricket after winning back to back T20 series against Australia and New Zealand. This warm-up match between Bangladesh and Ireland will be played at Sheikh Zayed Stadium Nursery 2, Abu Dhabi on 14 Oct and will be played from 11:30 AM IST onwards.
Bangladesh Team Preview
Mahmudullah who has been given the captaincy for the T20 World Cup after winning the T20 series against Australia and New Zealand didn’t play in the first warm match against Sri Lanka. There is no injury news about him and maybe the team management decided to drop in that game to give him a bit of rest. He is likely to feature in this match as he himself would like to have some match practice before the team will start their campaign for the World Cup on 17 Oct against Scotland.
Liton Das captained the side in the first game and if Mahmudullah does not play in this game also, then Das is likely to play the key role with the bat.
Soumya Sarkar and Mushfiqur Rahim have also done reasonably well for Bangladesh in T20 Cricket and both can play a satisfactory inning. These two are well known for high scoring and big hittings.
The frontline fast bowler of Bangladesh Mustafizur Rahman also not played the first warm-up match. But he can also get a chance in the playing XI of this game. If it is so then he will certainly be the best bowler to watch out for. The ace all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan also missed the first warm-up game and the likely strategy of the team would be not to open all their cards by choosing these players in the playing 11 of this warm-up match.
Shoriful Islam and Taskin Ahmed may get another chance and can step up with their fine bowling performance in the absence of senior bowlers.
Ireland Team Preview
Ireland team is also in very fine touch in recent T20 as well as ODI series. Ireland dropped Paul Stirling for the first match against Papua New Guinea but considering a strong team like Bangladesh they will definitely give him a chance in this match.
Kevin O Brien and captain Andrew Balbirnie will need to be at their best in this match otherwise it is going to be difficult to face a team like Bangladesh. Ireland team has batsmen who can take the control of opposition bowling from the start and always look in the hunt for runs.
Ireland bowlers were on top in the first match against Papua New Guinea and they bowled them out just at 96 runs. Although Papua New Guinea is a very weak team still the performance of bowlers Craig Young and Benjamin White is worth mentioning as they broke the backbone of the PNG team by taking 3 wickets each.
Bangladesh vs Ireland Playing 11
Bangladesh Playing 11
Liton Das(c), Mohammad Naim, Soumya Sarkar, Mushfiqur Rahim, Afif Hossain, Nurul Hasan(w), Shamim Hossain, Mahedi Hasan, Nasum Ahmed, Shoriful Islam, Taskin Ahmed
Ireland Playing 11
Kevin O Brien, Andrew Balbirnie (c), Gareth Delany, Curtis Campher, George Dockrell, Harry Tector, Neil Rock (wk), Simi Singh, Mark Adair, Craig Young, Benjamin White
Bangladesh vs Ireland Winner Prediction
Many good individual performances can be expected from the Ireland team’s batsmen and bowlers. The team has batsmen and bowlers who have done very well in patches but they are not looking strong enough to beat a team like Bangladesh who has crushed big teams in international cricket recently.
Therefore Bangladesh are the favorites to win this match against Ireland.