Team India's skipper Harmanpreet Kaur becomes the first cricketer to play 150 T20I matches

Harmanpreet Kaur-led team India has won the toss and decided to bat first against Ireland Women in match 18 of the Women's T20 WC 2023. After losing the last match to England, today's match has become a fight-or-die for the Indian team. To reach the semi-finals, India will have to beat Ireland by big margins today.

This is the 150th T20 International match of Indian captain Harmanpreet Kaur. She is the first cricketer to achieve this feat. Ireland's team has not won a single match in the Women's T20 WC 2023 so far. On Saturday, the Indian team got defeated by England by 11 runs, which was their first defeat in the tournament. India is second only to England (six points from three matches) with four points from three matches. England has qualified for the semi-finals. The current run rate of the Indian team is + 0.205, which they will have to improve.

Harmanpreet Kaur: "We are going to bat first. Looks like a hard and dry surface. Many of us haven't got that many runs, we need to express ourselves. Devika is playing in place of Radha. It (playing 150 T20I games) means a lot, I got an emotional message from my teammates. Thanks to Indian Cricket Board and International Cricket Board, we can play so many games."

It's a must-win game for team India tonight, by looking at both sides, team India has an upper hand in the upcoming game against the Irish side. Team India has both depths in bowling and batting which adds an advantage to their side against the IRE-W. The Irish side is struggling to score runs this week and it will be a difficult task for them to face Indian seamers. We say India to dominate this match.

Playing XI of both teams:

IND: Smriti Mandhana, Shefali Verma, Jemimah Rodrigues, Harmanpreet Kaur(c), Richa Ghosh(w), Devika Vaidya, Deepti Sharma, Pooja Vastrakar, Shikha Pandey, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Renuka Thakur Singh

IRE: Amy Hunter, Gaby Lewis, Orla Prendergast, Eimear Richardson, Louise Little, Laura Delany(c), Arlene Kelly, Mary Waldron(w), Leah Paul, Cara Murray, Georgina Dempsey

Till writing: IND 11-0 (2.3 Overs)