BAN vs IRE 1st T20 Match Prediction

BAN vs IRE Team Previews

Bangladesh

Bangladesh won the ODI series against Ireland 2-0 and as a result of this win, they will be confident of putting another series win across Ireland. They have pretty much all the bases covered at the moment and are being led by Najmul Hossain Shanto. Shanto was the top run-getter for Bangladesh in their series against England having scored 144 runs. Another batter that is looking good for Bangladesh is Litton Das. He has scored 314 runs in his last 10 games for Bangladesh with an average of 31.30 and with a strike rate of 140.35.

Litton Das has looked good for Bangladesh in pretty much all formats of the game. You can bet on him to produce something special in this game as well. The Bangladesh skipper Shakib Al Hasan may once again play a significant role in this match. He did not have a great series against England with the bat. However, you can expect him to come good against this opposition and play some handy innings in the middle order for the tigers. The wicket on offer at the Chattogram venue will be a slow and sluggish one. 

In these conditions, the Bangladesh spinners are likely to pose some serious problems for the Irish batters. The Ireland batsmen will not be used to playing this kind of spin bowling, especially in these conditions. One of the bowlers that are likely to cause maximum problems for Ireland is Mehidy Hasan Miraz. His slowish off-spin bowling will be tough to get away. He picked up 4 wickets against England while bowling at an economy rate of 5. But spinners are not the only threat the Ireland players have to face. The Bangladesh fast bowlers Taskin Ahmed and Mustafizur Rahman are pretty difficult to handle as well.

Ireland

Before they toured the country Bangladesh, the Irish team had to square off against Zimbabwe in Zimbabwe. They lost this T20I series 2-1. However, they are up against even tougher opposition in this series. The loss in the one-day international series would have put another dent in their confidence level for this series. Their captain Andy Balbirnie has a big responsibility of leading the side from the front. He has not exactly been in the best of form recently. However, he has scored 1857 T20 international runs with 8 fifties.

Lorcan Tucker is another critical player for Ireland in this game. He has scored 204 runs in his last seven games for Ireland with an average of 40.80 and a strike rate of 125.15. This is the batter to watch out for in this game. In the T20I series against Ireland, Harry Tector was the leading run-getter for Ireland. He scored 78 runs in 3 games. His presence in the middle order gives some sort of stability to the Ireland batting line-up. Ireland will also be hoping that Mark Adair will fire in this game. 

Adair has picked up 8 wickets in his last 10 matches while bowling at an economy rate of 8.12. He can create plenty of problems for the openers when bowling with the new ball. Harry Tector is an all-rounder and has been the top wicket-taker for Ireland in the recently concluded series against Zimbabwe with 5 wickets. These bowlers will get some assistance from this track. This off-spinner will try and keep things relatively quiet in the middle overs to put pressure on the Bangla batters.