"India are a really difficult challenge" - Ireland captain Paul Stirling ahead of their T20 World Cup opener
Ireland skipper Paul Stirling has stated that he understands the magnitude of the challenge they face against India in their T20 World Cup 2024 opener on Wednesday (June 5). However, the 33-year-old feels they will take confidence from a good performance against the Men in Blue, regardless of the outcome.
Team India are one of the many teams the Irishmen are yet to beat in T20Is. The two sides have locked horns in eight T20Is, with India winning seven of them and the remaining one finishing in no-result. Rohit Sharma's men are also the number-one ranked side heading into the showpiece event.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Stirling pointed out that the Indian players are coming off the IPL and are expected them to come hard at Ireland. As quoted by BBC, he remarked:
"India are a really difficult challenge - they’ve got a number of top, top bowlers, they’ve just come off the back of the IPL and we know what they bring is the highest quality in cricket standards. No matter what happens, if we put in a strong performance we’ll go in with confidence into the next three games of the group."
The Irishmen notably beat Pakistan in a T20I recently, but Babar Azam and co. roared back to win the next two matches and thereby, the series.
"We know how daunting a task it will be against four strong teams" - Paul Stirling
Stirling further commented that he hopes for everything to be on the line by the time Ireland face Pakistan. He underlined the need to be fully prepared against USA, given their recent victory against Bangladesh. The opening batter added:
"If we get to the stage where we’re facing Pakistan in a ‘winner-takes-all’ we’d probably be happy but if we look too far ahead and look at that scenario we’ll fall short.
"We know how daunting a task it will be against four strong teams, not just two - the India game is probably the trickiest of the four first up so we aim to put in a really good performance, then we’ve got two huge games coming up after that against the USA and Canada. The USA beating Bangladesh just cements the idea that we have to be at our best to beat them."
Ireland were eliminated from the group stage in the previous edition.