West Indies vs Ireland, 2020: 3-match T20I series – Statistical Preview

After sealing the ODI series by 3-0 margin over Ireland, the West Indies team now aim a T20I series win against the Irish side starting on Wednesday. Kieron Pollard and Andy Balbirnie will be leading the two sides in this series. The Ireland team possesses some attacking batsmen at the top who could challenge the home side. The series will be marked as the return of Dwayne Bravo to International cricket. Bravo last played for the West Indies back in 2016 and in meantime, he even announced his International retirement.

All the key stats and numbers ahead of the 3-match T20I series between West Indies and Ireland:

2 – West Indies have won only two of their last ten bilateral series since December 2017 in the T20I format – vs Bangladesh in Bangladesh, 2018 (2-1 in 3-match series) and one-off T20I against ICC World XI in 2018. West Indies lost the remaining 8 series they played in this period and were whitewashed five times.

2-1 – The last instance of West Indies and Ireland facing off in a T20I was back in 2014. The two teams clashed in four T20I matches thus far – two won by West Indies, one won by Ireland and another game ended without a result. All the three completed T20I matches between them were hosted by the West Indies only.

3-0 – West Indies won the 3-match ODI series against Ireland by 3-0 margin. If they win the first two matches of the T20I series, it will be the first instance of West Indies winning five consecutive International matches post the Champions Trophy 2013.

In these seven years, the West Indies managed to win only four consecutive Internationals – vs NZ/BAN in 2014 at home and vs Afghanistan in 2019/20 season in Lucknow.

990 – Lendl Simmons has aggregated 990 runs in his Twenty20 International Career thus far. He needs 10 more runs to become only the 5th West Indies player with 1000+ T20I runs in Men’s cricket. The first match of this series will be Simmons’ 50th T20I.

1929 – Runs Paul Stirling has amassed in his T20I career of 72 matches. Stirling needs 71 more runs to become the first player from Ireland and the 8th player overall to aggregate 1000 T20I runs.

2016 – Dwayne Bravo will be making a return to International Cricket after missing more than three years. His last appearance in Internationals was against Pakistan in September 2016 during their tour of UAE. West Indies played 143 International matches in this span including 37 T20Is.

2016 – Last instance of Ireland winning a bilateral T20I series was way back in 2016 against PNG (2-1 in 3-match series). Since then, Ireland has been part of seven bilateral T20I series and lost five of them and drew the other two series.

9935 – Kieron Pollard is only 65 runs away from becoming the 2nd player to aggregate 10000 runs in Twenty20 history after Chris Gayle. Pollard is currently the 2nd highest run-getter in T20s as he went past Brendon McCullum’s 9922 runs during the T20I decider against India recently.