Twitter Reactions: 76 runs differentiate India and Ireland in the opening encounter

Kuldeep Yadav registered his best T20I figures and bamboozled the batsmen during his spell.

By Aditya Gajanan Kukalyekar verified

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2 Min Read

Rohit Sharma
info
Rohit Sharma plays a shot. (Photo Source: Twitter)

Team India won the first T20 International against Ireland comfortably by 76 runs and took a 1-0 lead in the two-match series. It was the assault from the openers of the visitors, Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma, who pummeled the bowling attack of Ireland. The bowlers did the job in the second innings then as the wrist spinners and the pace bowlers proved too good for the batsmen of the home side.

After being invited to bat first, Rohit and Shikhar got the hold of the pitch in the first couple of overs after which it was only the one-way traffic. The ball was sent over the boundary line many times and the inexperience of the hosts was on the show. The dropped catches of Rohit didn’t help either as the openers added 160 runs for the first wicket. Some clever bowling from Kevin O’Brien scalped Dhawan who was in the mood on the day. But his partner continued to play with the bowlers as he manipulated the field perfectly.

Rohit was set to smash his third ton in T20Is but Peter Chase castled him on 97 in the final over of the innings to stop the party for the fans in the stands. But the damage was done earlier and even his three-wicket final over couldn’t stop India from posting a mammoth total of 208 runs after 20 overs.

Faltering chase

Ireland needed something special from their top order to gun down the total but the Indian bowlers were absolutely spot on from the word go. Only James Shannon fought bravely by scoring 60 runs off just 35 deliveries. He was authoritative in his shot-making and took a liking to Yuzvendra Chahal who was flighting almost every ball. But he didn’t get any support from the other end as the batsmen kept throwing the wickets.

Paul Stirling was the first one to go who failed to pick a searing delivery from Jasprit Bumrah. The batsmen had no idea while playing the chinaman Kuldeep Yadav who dismissed Simi Singh and Shannon to seal the fate of the game. Chahal also went on to scalp Andrew Balbirnie, Gary Wilson and Kevin O’Brien. The pressure of the required run-rate kept mounting on the hosts as India pounced in on them.

There was a decent stand between Stuart Thompson and Stuart Poynter but they only delayed the inevitable. Eventually, they could only post 132 runs with the Men in Blue winning the game by a whopping margin of 76 runs. The wrist-spinners continued to enjoy their away success as they shared 7 wickets together. It was a near-perfect game for the visitors as they took the lead in the series.

Here’s how Twitter reacted during the course of the game:

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