After an impressive win in their tournament opener, India will look to build on the momentum when they take on Ireland in their second Group B match of the ICC Men’s Under-19 World Cup in Tarouba on Wednesday.
Having started their campaign with a 45-run win over South Africa, Yash Dhull and Co will be the firm favourites against Ireland when the two teams clash at the Brian Lara Stadium.
Both India and Ireland have registered wins in their openers. While India beat South Africa, Ireland defeated Uganda by 39 runs.
Dhull anchored the Indian innings against the Proteas as they lost both their openers – Harnoor Singh and Angkrish Raghuvanshi – early after being put into bat.
Dhull added 71 runs with Shaikh Rasheed (31) for the third wicket to resurrect the Indian innings first and then stitched valuable contributions with Nishant Sidhu (27), Raj Bawa (13) and Kushal Tambe (35) to give his bowlers a decent target to defend.
But come Wednesday, Dhull would be looking for more support from his openers to ease the pressure on the middle and lower-order going into the knockout stages of the tournament.
Jalandhar-born left-handed opener Harnoor, who was India’s leading run-getter in the Asia Cup with 251 runs in five games and struck an unbeaten 100 against Australia in the team’s final warm-up game on January 11, will look to get among the runs against Ireland.
Left-arm spinner Vicky Ostwal (5/28) turned out to be the star performer with the ball while right-arm fast bowler Raj Bawa (4/47) gave the perfect support from the other end as India bowled out South Africa for 187 runs.
Right-arm pacer Rajvardhan Hangargekar (1/38), who has played senior cricket for Maharashtra and impressed with his raw pace in the Asia Cup, and left-arm fast bowler Ravi Kumar will also look to gain confidence against Ireland.
Meanwhile in the other match of the day, Australia will take on Scotland in a Group D game in Basseterre.
Squads
India: Yash Dhull (c), Harnoor Singh, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, SK Rasheed (vc), Nishant Sindhu, Siddarth Yadav, Aneeshwar Gautam, Dinesh Bana, Aaradhya Yadav, Raj Angad Bawa, Manav Parakh, Kaushal Tambe, Rajvardhan Hangargekar, Vasu Vats, Vicky Ostwal, Ravi Kumar, Garv Sangwan.
Ireland: Tim Tector (c), Diarmuid Burke, Joshua Cox, Jack Dickson, Liam Doherty, Jamie Forbes, Daniel Forkin, Matthew Humphreys, Philippus le Roux, Scott MacBeth, Nathan McGuire, Muzamil Sherzad, David Vincent, Luke Whelan, Reuben Wilson.
Match starts at 6:30 pm IST.
Inputs from PTI
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