Ireland captain Andrew Balbirnie gives fans reason to believe ahead of World Cup

This month, Ireland’s cricket team will try to upset the sport’s elite in the T20 World Cup.

The tournament takes place in the West Indies and the United States, with games held in Florida, Texas, and New York. Ireland’s first two games will be on Long Island, as the team faces favorites India on Wednesday and underdogs Canada two days later.

Winning the World Cup is a daunting challenge, with cricket’s biggest nations – including Australia, England, South Africa, and New Zealand – battling the Irish for hardware. But as recent history tells us, there’s no reason why Ireland should fear any team.

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During the last World Cup in Australia two years ago, Ireland defeated Scotland and the West Indies – the two-time champions – to reach the second round of the tournament. The team then achieved another huge victory, beating eventual winners England.

Ireland also goes into this year’s World Cup in good form. The team recently picked up a win against Pakistan – one of their group-stage opponents at this month’s tournament – and comfortably won its tri-series against the Netherlands and Scotland in May.

Ireland’s captain Andrew Balbirnie is confident his colleagues can make an impact on the upcoming tournament. “The guys are pretty confident, and we’re playing pretty good cricket,” Balbirnie told the Irish Star. “Tournament cricket is good, it kind of suits us.”

Ireland’s tournament starts on Wednesday when it takes on India at New York’s temporary 34,000-seater stadium. The game against Canada is two days later before Balbirnie’s men head to Florida to take on the United States on June 14. Ireland’s final group-stage game against Pakistan will be on June 16, again in Florida.

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Ireland will reach the “Super 8s” stage of the World Cup if it can finish in the top two of its group. The second round of the tournament is split into two groups of four, with the top two in each group heading onto the semifinals and then the final.

Getting beyond India and Pakistan, two former champions, will be difficult – but Balbirnie knows that. “We clearly have two big teams in our group that are going to take some pretty good cricket from us to win.

“But also we have two very good up-and-coming teams in the US and Canada that if we’re not on the ball, they could easily get one over on us. So we have to make sure that we’re focused for four games and try to get the best results possible.”

Balbirnie believes the team has improved significantly since its disappointing exit at the World Cup in Oman and the United Arab Emirates three years ago. Ireland, one of cricket’s 12 full members, was dumped out of the tournament by minnows Namibia. Yet since then, the team has pulled off series wins against Afghanistan and Zimbabwe.

“This group has come a long way… since we got knocked out by Namibia in that game in Sharjah in 2021. We kind of reassessed about how we can compete better and more consistently. And I think we showed that in the last version of this competition in Australia. Following on from that, we’ve played a lot of top teams both home and away. And we’ve played pretty good cricket.

“The beauty of tournament cricket is you have four games over 10 days, two weeks. If you’re in hot form, you can reap the rewards of that and get into that next phase. It’ll be a huge success if we do (get through), getting past India and Pakistan is no mean feat. The India-Pakistan game in New York is clearly the big one for the World Cup, but hopefully, we can have a bit of a say of it in the group stages.”

As Balbirnie notes, the World Cup’s biggest game is the clash between India and Pakistan, with tickets selling for around $900 on third-party platforms. Yet the atmosphere on Wednesday will also be special, something Ireland’s skipper is “looking forward to”.

“We’re fortunate that we’ve played India a number of times in the last couple of years in Dublin, so we’ve experienced an atmosphere against India. We understand how much of a caldron it is when you play them. It’ll be a different kettle of fish now on Wednesday when there are 30,000-odd people there and 90 percent of them will be India fans and cheering them on.

“But I think that brings out some good skills in us, as well, it brings out the best of us when we’re playing in that sort of atmosphere. All the pressure will be on them going into that game – those players are expected to win every game of cricket they play for India. If we can hopefully get them a bit rusty first up in the competition, and we play good cricket, who knows what can happen.”

Although playing in Florida will be a joy, the highlight of Ireland’s trip has to be those games in New York. Balbirnie and his colleagues are staying in Brooklyn and had some downtime on Saturday and Sunday to enjoy the city, attending a Mets game.

But the players are now getting down to business. Speaking before the weekend, Balbirnie added: “Saturday and Sunday we’ll try to see as much as we can. I know a lot of us have some friends in New York, so there might be a bit of catching up to do over the weekend. But certainly once Sunday (night), Monday comes around, we’ll be very much focusing on India.”

Balbirnie is also hoping to draw on New York’s Irish community for support. “There’s a lot of Irish people in America, there’s a lot of Americans who claim to have a lot of Irish in them! So it’ll be nice if we can get that support.

“But I think once those India tickets go on sale, the Indian fans are pretty quick to snap them up. We’ll have family and friends there. No matter how many Irish fans you have there, it’ll still feel like a home game for India. But that’s fine, that’s a great atmosphere to be a part of.”

All eyes are now on New York’s temporary stadium to see if Ireland can pull off a shock against India. The team has beaten the likes of England, Pakistan, and the West Indies on the big stage. Yet stopping India in New York would surely top the lot.