Ireland stun champions

Rookies play big part in historic T20 victory over Indian superstars

A patched together Ireland side stunned the world champions in Stormont yesterday, taking down India for the first time by 35 runs.

With six front-liners sidelined, there were fears that Ireland’s seam attack would be pulverised by the Indian Premier League superstars. But the three men who came in – with one previous cap between them – turned in superb performances to outwit the visiting stars and strangle their hopes of victory.

Never before have Ireland turned in as complete a T20 performance against a marquee side.

The T20 World Cup in Dubai was just four months ago, but if someone told you one of these teams had collected the trophy for the second time running, and the other had gone home with a solitary win over Oman  you might have struggled to pick which was which.

Jai Moondra came to Ireland to study at TU Dublin, and has worked at Intel since 2022. He arrived here as a batsman who bowled left-arm off-spin for Leinster CC, but was persuaded to switch to left arm pace, which he delivers at 85mph.

He had his own fan club in the 4,500 crowd in Stormont. His fellow Indian pals waved a sign saying ‘Moondra hai toh mumkin hai’ which translates as ‘When Moondra’s there, there’s always a chance’. And so it proved.

Playing against the land of his birth could have shredded his nerves, but the 29-year-old’s first ball for Ireland was edged onto his stumps by Sanju Sansom – player of the tournament in that recent World Cup.

Moondra picked up a second wicket in his final over. His return of 2-25 earned the man from Rajahstan the Bowling Excellence Award.

The other post-match gong, for player of the match, went to the other debutant, Matt Hollard from Balbriggan via Boksberg in South Africa, who returned 3-28. It took him twice as long to make an impact – inducing Ishan Kishan into skying his second ball to Lorcan Tucker.

The third seamer, Liam McCarthy, justified his recall and claimed the vital wicket of Abishek Sharma, who made 50 off 19 balls. Suddenly India were 80-4 and kept losing wickets until they could lose no more.

The Irish spinners stepped up too, Matt Humphreys shrugging off a nasty blow to his thumb to end with 3-38, while Gareth Delany was called on for the vital 17th over and took 1-3.

New skipper Tucker showed invention as well as composure in his multi-task role as leader, strategist, wicketkeeper and
Ireland’s best batsman.

India had asked his side to bat, and Tim Tector set the tone with a neat six in the first over.

There was a slump to 51-4, but Tucker and Delany put on 64 in seven overs, scampering plenty of twos and clearing the ropes when appropriate – nine times in the whole innings, with Delany hitting three in a row off Krishna.

Tucker’s wasteful dismissal on 50 – his third fifty in three innings as captain, a unique run in world cricket – brought in George Dockrell, who continued to hit the ball far and wide.

He and Delany put on 49 in just 16 balls to bring Ireland to a challenging score, which closed on 182-9.

It was still expected that India would make short work of the total, even though they had omitted 15-year-old superstar Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, but it was not to be as
Ireland’s bowlers showed great control to frustrate the millionaires.

Tucker said: ‘It was pretty special, that. We scrapped through the game, we had some tough periods, but we stuck to it, we were diligent.

‘India bowled really well at the start. We found it challenging to hit good shots. It was like a Test match for a bit.

‘The debutants were really dogged. We learned from how India bowled and they showed great ability to keep hitting the right spots.’

His counterpart, Shreyas Iler, is also new to the job.  He said: ‘We are going to forget what happened and there’s a lot to learn from this game. We are going to come out all guns blazing.’