Ireland 182 for 9 (Tucker 50, Delany 49, Rana 3-24) beat India 148 (Abhishek 49, Hollard 3-28, Moondra 2-26) by 34 runs
Rana strikes over and over
Nine hundred and thirty six days since he last played a game in the shortest format, Shreyas Iyer pulled on the India blues and this time it came with the armband. He had the toss go his way and recognising the seam, swing and bounce on offer, he had Rana and Arshdeep Singh bowl right through the powerplay. But that bit of frontloading had an adverse effect later. At the death, India had to turn to a spinner – Washington Sundar gave away 19 runs bowling the 16th over – and a man having a bad day – Prasidh Krishna gave away 27 runs in the 17th over and finished with figures of 0 for 57 to follow 0 for 68 from his last T20I three years ago. Axar Patel and Arshdeep bailed Iyer out as India conceded only 18 off the last 18 balls.
Ireland’s debutants too good
Moondra had family and friends in the crowd. They had signs up that said Moondra hai toh mumkin hai which translates to when Moondra’s there, there’s always a chance. And so it was as the left-arm quick began his career by dismissing the player of the last T20 World Cup. Sanju Samson was bowled for 5. The other debutant, Hollard, had an even better time, brandishing three different celebrations when he took down Ishan Kishan with his second ball in T20Is and then going on to dismiss Iyer for 3.
Ireland bossed the period immediately after the powerplay, giving up just two boundaries in 27 balls. That pressure produced wickets. Tilak Varma, trying to break the boundary drought, fell to the reverse sweep which left India 90 for 5 after 10.2 overs and Ireland 70% favourites to win the game according to Cricinfo’s forecaster. When Hollard dismissed Washington for 9 off 12, the result started to look like a foregone conclusion and the merits of playing him over Sooryavanshi started to look unclear.
