Toss England chose to bowl vs Ireland
England captain Jos Buttler won the toss and opted to chase on a fresh MCG pitch under overcast skies. Buttler said the weather influenced his decision; there's a 70% chance of rain in Melbourne on Wednesday, according to the Australian Government bureau of meteorology, with the second game of the day between New Zealand and Afghanistan also in jeopardy.
While England were unchanged, Ireland swapped out offspinning allrounder Simi Singh for seamer Fionn Hand in a bid to exploit the swing and bounce offered by the early-season conditions at the MCG. Hand has played only two T20Is and 22 T20s overall.
This is only the second time that Ireland are facing England in T20Is. When Ireland first met England in the 2010 T20 World Cup in the Caribbean, they gave them a scare before the game was washed out.
England: 1 Jos Buttler (capt & wk), 2 Alex Hales, 3 Dawid Malan, 4 Ben Stokes, 5 Liam Livingstone, 6 Harry Brook, 7 Moeen Ali, 8 Sam Curran, 9 Chris Woakes, 10 Adil Rashid, 11 Mark Wood
Ireland: 1 Paul Stirling, 2 Andy Balbirnie (capt), 3 Lorcan Tucker (wk), 4 Harry Tector, 5 Curtis Campher, 6 George Dockrell, 7 Gareth Delany, 8 Mark Adair, 9 Fionn Hand 10 Barry McCarthy, 11 Josh Little
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