IRE vs USA 1st Semi-Final 7th Place Play-off Match Prediction

IRE vs USA Team Previews

Ireland

The Irish team was expected to perform better in the Group stages of the competition. The loss they had to endure in the game against Oman proved to be a shock for the team. The Irish team has been doing a promising job in the one-day internationals in the last few years. They have managed to register wins against bigger teams such as England as well. In a game against England in 2020, the Irish batters chased a score of 329 runs with 7 wickets to spare. England are defending World Champions in the ODI format.

The Irish team is going into this competition with all their key players from that game and has also managed to record some other significant victories. Andrew Balbirnie, Harry Tector, and Paul Stirling combine to have a powerful middle order. The Irish team has been consistent with their team selection and most of the players from the current team have received several opportunities. The loss against Oman was followed by another 1-wicket defeat against Scotland and then they suffered a heavy defeat at the hands of Sri Lanka at the Queens Sports Club.

The Irish team achieved their only win in the competition in their last match against UAE. Paul Stirling managed to score 162 runs while batting near the top of the order. This was followed by the fifties from Tector and Balbirnie in their middle order. This performance would have given the Irish team the confidence to regain their winning form in the semi-final game for the 7th place. The bowling attack will be led by Mark Adair and Joshua Little. Some all-rounders are playing on the team which adds depth to their bowling attack.

USA

The USA outfit appeared good in their first game and although they ended up on the losing side, they provided a stiff challenge to the West Indians. After this, the USA's performance gradually went on a downward slope. In their match against the Nepal side, the team was down on their haunches with 4 for 18 at one stage. But they made a partial recovery to reach 207 runs all out. The next match saw another collapse against the Netherlands. The team USA lost half their side for 79 runs and in this innings, they finished on 211 runs for the loss of 8 wickets.

These back-to-back losses led to the team management deciding to change the captaincy. The captaincy was assigned to Manank Patel for the last game against Zim. In this match, the USA was bowled out for a paltry total of 104 runs when they were chasing 409 runs. The key batsmen for the USA are Shayan Jahangir and Gajanand Singh. These are the only players that looked like doing well for the USA. Jahangir scored a terrific 100 from 69 balls against Nepal. He also contributed 71 runs off 86 deliveries against the Netherlands in the USA's next match.

Sushant Modani and Steven Taylor are appearing to be out of touch at the top of the order while the batsmen playing in number 3 and number 4 positions are not looking too good either. The usually reliable bowlers such as Netravalkar, Ali Khan, and Jasdeep Singh have not made a significant impact for the US with the ball. These bowlers can come back to form any time though as the USA goes up against Ireland in this match-up. Team USA lost all 4 games in Group A to finish at the bottom of the points table with a net run rate of -2.164.