The highly anticipated international debut of Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, the 15-year-old batting prodigy, has been put on hold as India won the toss and elected to bowl first against Ireland in the first T20I of the two-match series at the  Civil Service Cricket Club, Belfast on Friday. 

The match marks the official beginning of Shreyas Iyer’s full-time tenure as India’s T20I captain, taking over the reins from Suryakumar Yadav following a successful T20 World Cup defense earlier in the year. On the other hand, Lorcan Tucker leads a new-look Ireland side as their full-time skipper. 

India win toss, opt to bowl first in Belfast

Shreyas Iyer, leading India in T20Is for the first time in a full series, called correctly at the toss. 

“On winning the toss and choosing to field first] We’re going to field first. It looks a good pitch. Yeah, it’s a new surface for us, and it’s the first time, and the majority of us haven’t played over here. So, considering the conditions, the environment, and also the wicket, we have decided to field first. [On returning to Ireland and Gautam Gambhir’s message to the team] Honestly speaking, he’s just asked all the players to be themselves and be relentless in the approach, ruthless. And there are so many other adverbs which I could put in over here. But, you know, it comes from the experience, and the majority of us, as I’ve mentioned before, it’s our first time over here. So we need to get accustomed to the conditions as well as quickly as possible. And we’ve got a tremendous session yesterday. So, boys are looking in great shape and good form,” said Shreyas at the toss. 

[On beginning the campaign to defend India’s World Cup title] Absolutely. You know, we’re going to take one match at a time, and that’s the eventual goal. But right now, it’s over here, in Ireland, playing against Ireland, and get the best out of each other. [On his captaincy philosophy] I always keep saying that you don’t have to complicate things. Keep it as simple as possible. When I say that, you just need to be in the present and not think much about or dwell into past or future. If you’re there in the moment and you’re enjoying the game, that’s all is required from each one. 

(Vaibhav playing?) Unfortunately, no. He’s a gun player. But obviously, we’ve got tremendous experience in the squad who have done brilliant in the past couple of series for India. So we are backing majority of our cricketers who have been doing absolutely marvellous throughout the season. So I think he’outside the leg-stump get his opportunity when the time comes. But for now, we are going with three genuine seamers, one all-rounder, and two spinners,” he added. 

Playing XIs For IND vs IRE 1st T20I

Ireland (Playing XI): Tim Tector, Ross Adair, Harry Tector, Lorcan Tucker(w/c), Benjamin Calitz, Gareth Delany, George Dockrell, Liam McCarthy, Matthew Humphreys, Jai Moondra, Matthew Hollard

India (Playing XI): Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson(w), Ishan Kishan, Shreyas Iyer(c), Tilak Varma, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Harshit Rana, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna