PARIS: Ireland coach Heinrich Malan said Tuesday that this summer’s T20 World Cup would be special but it was a “Catch-22 situation” that his team would be playing India in their opening match.

Ireland, who won their first-ever Test against Afghanistan last week, will play all their group matches in the United States, taking on India and Canada in New York before moving to Lauderhill, Florida to face USA — co-hosts with the West Indies — and Pakistan.

“If you go back a couple of years and said we are going to play cricket in America, no one would have believed you,” Malan told reporters in a video conference ahead of his side’s first ODI against the Afghans in Sharjah on Thursday.

“It’s an exciting opportunity for us but we’ve got a bit of work to do to tick all the boxes before we jump on that plane.

“If you look at who we are going to play, Pakistan and India, ask any T20 cricketer, these are two of the teams you want to play. To know that we are going to play them in stadiums that take 25 or 30 thousand people will be even more special.

“Hopefully we can play some consistent cricket and a brand of cricket that will be exciting and hopefully get us across the line.”

Ireland face the daunting prospect of taking on India, with its wealth of stars all fresh from the Indian Premier League, on a ‘drop-in’ pitch in their opening match in New York on June 5.

“From our point of view, it’s a bit of a Catch-22 because they’ll have a lot of players that’ll come straight out of IPL and be battle-hardened.

“At the end of the day we can’t control who’s in front of us, but we can try and control the way we go about our business and our preparation.

“And hopefully we can play a good brand of cricket for 40 overs and they’ll take us a little bit lightly... I don’t think they will.

“The good part is they play so often there’s a lot of information around so we can be clear about our tactics. You look at their numbers and their amount of games, it shows that they are quality players.

“But at the end of the day it’s a bat versus a ball. We’ve shown as individuals that we can compete with these big names, hopefully those performances dovetail once we hit that June period in America.”

The current tour still has three ODIs followed by three T20Is, all of them in Sharjah, but last week’s six-wicket win in the only Test will mean it goes down already as a success.

Published in Dawn, March 7th, 2024