Ireland Stun India In Belfast, Register First-Ever T20I Win

Belfast: Ireland beat India by 34 runs. This was India's chance to warm up before playing England. Instead they got a shock. The match was at Civil Service Cricket Club in Belfast. Ireland batted first and posted 182. India could not chase it down.

How was Ireland's innings?

Ireland started badly as they scored 51 for 4 wickets. Tim Tector made 17 and Ross Adair made 12 runs. Harry Tector got out for nothing then Lorcan Tucker took charge. He scored a half-century and got proper support from Gareth Delany. The two put on a 64-run partnership. That partnership saved the innings. Benjamin Calitz and George Dockrell hit some late runs. Ireland reached 182.

How was India's bowling?

Harshit Rana was the standout. He took 3 wickets for 24 runs. Axar Patel took 2. Arshdeep Singh took 2. But Prasidh Krishna was poor. He leaked 57 runs in four overs. He was hit all over the ground.

India's batting collapsed?

Abhishek Sharma attacked from the start. He smashed 50 runs off 19 balls. But no one else did anything. Sanju Samson got 5 wickets and Ishan Kishan got 1. Captain Shreyas Iyer got 3. After Abhishek got out, it was all over.
On the other hand, Matthew Humphreys took 3 wickets. Matthew Hollard also took 3. Ireland's bowlers were relentless.

What was the real problem?

Abhishek's 50 meant nothing as he had no partners. The middle order did not support him. That is been India's problem for months now. The captain also batted down the order, that raises questions. And having both Washington Sundar and Axar Patel in the same team when they bat different positions in IPL makes no sense. India came to warm up. Instead they got a wake-up call.