Never before had an Irish team beaten an Indian team. At any level. Until today.
In a remarkably assured performance against the world’s best team, Ireland Men – who were without up to five frontline players due to injury – recovered from 51-4 in the 8th over to amass 182-9 after 20 overs, thanks largely to Lorcan Tucker (50) and Gareth Delany (49).
There were additional important contributions by George Dockrell (19 off 10 balls) and Ben caltiz (15 off 11 balls), but the innings’ of Tucker and Delany made the difference.
In his first match after being announced as the new permanent T20 captain, Tucker’s 36-ball knock included 5 fours and 2 sixes as he led his side from the precipice to a very competitive position.
The Irish bowlers needed to back-up the batting unit, but the attack had two debutants (Jai Moondra and Matthew Hollard) and another bowler with one cap (Liam McCarthy). Against some of the world’s leading batters in this format, the pundits were predicting only one way traffic from the off.
Life, though, can be unpredictable. 16 runs were plundered off the first over – an ominous foreboding of what was to come was felt.
That was, until the first ball of the second over. On his international debut, left-arm seamer Jai Moondra ran in and slanted a full length ball across Sanju Samson. The Indian maestro flashed at it, getting a bottom edge with the ball cannoning into the off stump.
Moondra and his teammates were delirious.
India continued to go hard and were 45-1 in the 4th over when the other Irish debutant, Matthew Hollard, induced a top-edge from Ishan Kishan and Tucker claimed a high catch. Hollard struck again in his next over, and the mighty Indian line-up began to look shaky at 60-3.
Three further wickets fell with the score on 80, 90 then 100 – at 100-6 it now seemed “game on”. Hollard finished his days work with 3-28, with Moondra returning with the ball.
The lanky seamer bowled a well-pitched up ball that stuck in the pitch and Shivam Dube could only play a return catch.
A late order rally with the bat saw India get to 137-7 before Matthew Humphreys (3-38) and Gareth Delany (1-3) cleaned up the tail – India finished 34 runs short and history was made.
