India and Ireland faced each other in what was India’s 100th T20I match at the Village cricket ground in Malahide, Dublin, Ireland.
Irish captain Gary Wilson won the toss and chose to bowl first. India decided to bench Dinesh Karthik and KL Rahul for this match and gave a chance to Manish Pandey. India opened with the trusted pair of Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma.
Both Dhawan and Rohit started slowly, but soon opened shoulders, scoring 59 runs in first six overs. Dhawan in particular was more severe on Irish bolwers. He scored 74 in 45 balls with 5 fours and 5 sixes before Kevin O’Brien had him caught by Thompson. The duo added 160 runs for the first wicket. Suresh Raina came in next to score 10 runs in 6 balls and Dhoni hit 11 runs in 5 balls. Virat Kohli failed to open his account.
Rohit Sharma was looking good for his 3rd hundred in the format, but was bowled by Chase for 97 in 61 balls with 8 fours and 5 sixes. India finished with 208/5, thanks to a six off the last ball by Hardik Pandya. Peter Chase was the pick of Irish bowlers with career best figures of 4/35.
In reply, Ireland lost Paul Sterling for 1 to Bumrah and Balbirnie for 11 to Chahal. James Shannon rode his luck to score a very good 60 off 35 balls with 5 sixes, before Kuldeep got him LBW. Chahal then removed O’Brien and Wilson in two balls to rattle Ireland, as they slumped to 96/6. Kuldeep came back to pick some more wickets and ended up with 4/21, his best T20I bowling figures.
Ireland were not bowled out and ended the innings on 132/9 and lost the match by 76 runs.
It was a clinical performance by the stronger Indian side and Ireland batsmen failed short of playing the Indian spinners and faltered.
BRIEF SCORES:
IND 208/5 (R SHARMA 97; P CHASE 4/35) defeated IRE 132/9 (J SHANNON 60; K YADAV 4/21) by runs 76 runs