Ireland bowl first as Mark Adair and Tom Curran come into starting line-ups

Ireland won the toss and chose to bowl vs England

England will bat first in the third ODI after being sent into bat by Ireland captain Andy Balbirnie on a fresh pitch at the Ageas Bowl.

Ireland’s top-order batting let them down in the first two matches, and Balbirnie said that he expected the pitch to stay flat throughout, informing his decision to chase.

England are without Reece Topley, who suffered a left groin strain in his first international appearance for four years on Saturday. He is due to have a scan, but it is anticipated that it will only be a minor injury. Tom Curran came back into the XI for him, with Liam Livingstone and Liam Dawson both left on the sidelines.

Ireland only named their 14-man squad on the morning of the match, with George Dockrell replaced by seamer Mark Adair, their leading wicket-taker across all formats in 2019. Adair had missed the first two ODIs after failing to prove his fitness following an ankle injury, but has been passed fit and comes straight into the side for Simi Singh.

Singh’s omission means that Andy McBrine is the only frontline spinner in the Ireland side, though Gareth Delany and Paul Stirling will both provide additional options.

Balbirnie has kept the faith with the same batting line-up that slumped to 28 for 5 in the first ODI and 44 for 4 in the second, deciding against bringing in William Porterfield to shore things up.

“It was definitely spoken about, but getting the young guys a bit more exposure at this level is something we need to do moving forward,” Balbirnie explained. “It looks a pretty good wicket. Hopefully we can put in a good shift.”

“The wicket does look a lot better today,” said Eoin Morgan. “We would have bowled today. The guys who have come in have been really impressive so far.”

England: 1 Jonny Bairstow (wk), 2 Jason Roy, 3 James Vince, 4 Tom Banton, 5 Sam Billings, 6 Eoin Morgan (capt), 7 Moeen Ali, 8 David Willey, 9 Tom Curran. 10 Adil Rashid, 11 Saqib Mahmood

Ireland: 1 Paul Stirling, 2 Gareth Delany, 3 Andy Balbirnie (capt), 4 Harry Tector, 5 Kevin O’Brien, 6 Lorcan Tucker, 7 Curtis Campher, 8 Mark Adair, 9 Andy McBrine, 10 Craig Young, 11 Josh Little

Source: ESPN Crickinfo

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