Cloudy skies will greet India and Ireland when they meet in their first Group A match of T20 World Cup 2024 at the Nassau County Cricket Ground in New York on Wednesday, June 5. All eyes will be on former champions India as they open their campaign amid a lot of expectations and the opener is expected to be a rain interruption-free affair.
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While there was rain in the lead-up to India’s warm-up match against Bangladesh, leading to a cancelled training session, the weather in New York seems to have improved. And the good news is there is no rain threat for the big-ticket game involving India.
India vs Ireland: Match Preview and Prediction
According to AccuWeather’s forecast for New York on June 6, the weather is expected to be cloudy from 10 am to 2 pm — the duration of the Group A game at the newly-built 34,000-seater stadium. The game, which is set to start at 10:30 am local time, will be played under partly sunny conditions. The sun might play hide and seek behind the clouds with the temperature ranging between 21 and 25 degrees celcius during the match.
It remains to be seen If the weather conditions will impact the combination of both teams for their opening game in the Group A contest.
There has been a lot of chatter about the pitch at the Nassau County Cricket Stadium in New York. While India managed to post 182 in their warm-up game against Bangladesh, Sri Lanka were shot out for 77 against South Africa in their Group D match on Monday, June 3. The pitch was criticised for being bowler friendly as 14 wickets fell in the contest after Sri Lanka batters found the going extremely tough.
Captain Rohit Sharma said he was not able to watch the game between Sri Lanka and South Africa and reiterated that India’s combination will depend on the conditions.
“I didn’t get to watch the game. I was a little busy with my family who had arrived yesterday. But no, certainly I know how the pitch played, hearing from my other teammates, and we’ve got a lot of guys in the team and the support staff were talking about what happened in that game,” Rohit said.
“But see, again, all I can say is we’ll make the best decision possible for these types of conditions, whatever the best level we feel. We’ll just go to the ground and have a look at the pitch. Certainly, a lot of things are very uncertain in terms of the outfield, in terms of how the pitch is going to play. There is a square of four pitches. I don’t know which wicket we will be playing on. So, who knows – the wicket that we are playing tomorrow might be a good wicket to bat on. So, it’s all about adapting,” he added.
The Group A game between India and Ireland will get underway from 10:30 am local time, 8 pm IST.
Source Agencies
