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The Ireland cricket team will host Afghanistan at Stormont in Belfast on Sunday for the first of two ODIs.
In the United States, the match will start at 5:45 a.m. ET. While it won’t be broadcast nationally on television anywhere in the US, you can watch a live stream of the match on ESPN+, the streaming service from ESPN that includes many different live sports, all the 30-for-30 documentaries, and other original content.
You can start a free trial of ESPN+ right here, and you can then watch a live stream of Ireland vs Afghanistan on your computer via ESPN.com, or on your phone (Android and iPhone compatible), tablet, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Chromecast, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, or other streaming device via the ESPN app.
If you can’t watch live, the match is available to be watched on-demand via ESPN+.
Ireland vs Afghanistan Preview
The ODI series will help Afghanistan adjust to the climate of the upcoming Cricket World Cup, which will be held in England and Wales from late May to mid-June.
Afghanistan are the worst-ranked squad in the World Cup’s field of 10.
“It is time for us to deliver something,” right-arm spinner Rashid Khan told The Advertiser, according to Circle of Cricket. “That will be the main target. We prepared hard for it. It doesn’t make sense that we are happy Afghanistan who got the opportunity to be playing at the World Cup. Our aim is we are not just going to participate in the World Cup, we need to do something different.”
He added: “We have the skills, everything. We won’t have as much experience at the World Cup as other teams but we have to take advantage of our talent and play well in a big situation.”
In April, with an eye toward the future, Afghanistan’s chair of selectors appointed 28-year-old all-rounder Gulbadin Naib as captain.
“We will get 10 matches with full members and we feel it will provide perfect training for the new captain,” chief selector Dawlat Khan Ahmadzai said, according to The New Indian Express.
“We realized that we can’t win the World Cup at this moment under Asghar’s captaincy or anyone else who would have been in charge. We made the decision not just thinking about this World Cup, we are thinking about 2023.”
After going winless in and failing to reach the final of the Ireland Tri-Nation Series, which featured the West Indies and Bangladesh, the Irish — not among the World Cup field — have made one change to their roster. Left-arm pacer Josh Little will be replaced with right-arm seamer Tyrone Kane, who has yet to appear in an ODI.
“The first few months of 2019 have shown the talent and potential within Irish cricket, and the emergence of new players on the international stage,” Ireland’s chair of selectors Andrew White said, according to the International Cricket Council website. “Indeed in just the first half of this calendar year we have seen five players make their ODI debuts. With Tyrone [Kane] joining the squad for the Afghanistan series, he is in contention to be a sixth ODI debutant.
“We have not shied away from the fact that our senior men’s international squad is in a transition period. This is not an overnight process, and it will take time and patience to bring through new players into the international setup.
“We have recently seen some fantastic batting performances against quality bowlers led by some of the more senior players — including some big centuries which are needed at this level to build competitive totals or to chase down big targets.
“The bowling unit has shown glimpses of what we are working towards — and feedback from coaching staff is that given we don’t have the out-and-out pace or mystery spin variations of other top sides, we are working very much on the ability of our bowling unit to perform more consistently with a disciplined line day-in and day-out against world-class opposition batters.”