Mumbai: Determined to retain the core of their World Cup winning squad, India resisted handing Vaibhav Sooryavanshi his much awaited international debut. Just carrying the champions badge wasn’t going to be enough, though.
The champions’ curse struck again: the 2026 T20 World Cup winners lost their first bilateral match after the trophy win to Ireland, who secured a historic 34-run victory on Friday in Belfast. This mirrors the fate of India’s 2024 T20 winning team.
It was Ireland’s first-ever victory against India in any format. The result also marked an inauspicious start to Shreyas Iyer’s innings as India T20I captain.
Despite the additional star on the jersey, India couldn’t summon the winning spirit. Their batting was reckless and their catching was worse. The pitch had bounce for the pacers and some hold on offer for the slower balls and demanded a lot more application than what India’s batters offered in pursuit of 183.
India scored 68 runs in the Powerplay, showing the belligerence fans are used to. In the process, they lost 3 wickets. At the time, it felt like a natural outcome of playing a high risk game. There were no alarm bells, just yet.
However, some signs were visible in India’s dismissals. You could see it in Ishan Kishan’s (1) failed flick over short fine leg and in Iyer’s (3) clumsy flick into the hands of deep square leg. A bilateral international these days gets forgotten in a hurry. Not, if the fancied team loses, though. Not if you are the Cup holders.
Once the field spread, the wicket slowed down. Debutant pacer Matt Hollard began introducing changes of pace and Indian batters couldn’t adjust. Only Abhishek Sharma’s bat was flowing, but he too lost patience after losing the strike for quite some time, while wickets fell at the other end. India were digging a hole for themselves at 80/4 after Abhishek’s 49 (20b) wicket, falling to an off-cutter.
Tilak Varma (19) was circumspect to begin with, but fell playing a reverse sweep as India’s long line of all-rounders could neither bat the team out of trouble nor take the match deep.
Together with Hollard, the other Ireland debutant Rajasthan-born left-arm pacer Jai Moondra (4-0-25-2) had a memorable outing.
Earlier, Indian fast bowlers had begun by exploiting the helpful conditions beautifully.
With Ireland missing several regular players, Arshdeep Singh’s around-the-wicket angle resulted in plenty of play and misses. Harshit Rana, at the other end, showed with the new ball that he had lost none of the nip he had before the knee injury that ruled him out of World Cup selection.
Arshdeep’s fuller lengths, Harshit’s being a yard shorter: together India’s new ball bowlers bowled through the Powerplay to reduce Ireland to 36/3. At the half way mark of the innings Ireland were completely in check at 68/4.
Iyer later said, with the start they got, India should have restricted the home team for 140. But their support bowling wasn’t as good. India were also guilty of missing a few catches in the deep. Axar Patel was the unlucky bowler.
Ireland captain Loren Tucker 50 (36b) stepped up the gas with Gerath Delany 49 (32b) to transport pressure back on India. In the 17th over, Prasidh Krishna felt the heat and lost his length completely. Delany dispatched him for a 27-run over, more than what he conceded in his best-ever ODI spell over 8.2 overs in his last international outing.
Against India’s profligate batting, Ireland’s late batting assault proved to be crucial to cap a memorable day for the the No.11 ranked T20I side in the world.
