ICC Men's T20 World Cup: India romp to 8-wicket win over Ireland

Pandya takes 3 as India’s dominating bowlers bundle out Ireland for 96: Rohit shines

New York: India beat Ireland by eight wickets in their opening Group A match of the T20 World Cup here on Wednesday. Captain Rohit Sharma top-scored with a 37-ball 52 before he retired hurt while wicketkeeper-batter Rishabh Pant chipped in with 36 not out off 26 balls as India chased down the target of 97 with 46 balls to spare.

Earlier, India's pace quartet, led by Hardik Pandya, produced a dominant effort on a spicy pitch to bowl out Ireland for 96. Pandya (3/27) led India's effort with the ball and he received able support from Arshdeep Singh (2/35) and Jasprit Bumrah (2/6) after skipper Rohit elected to bowl first in their tournament opener.

For Ireland, Gareth Delany top-scored with 26 and was involved in partnerships of 27 and 19 for the tenth and eleventh wickets respectively in a miserable performance on a tough batting pitch, something which will lead to more questions being raised about surfaces at New York.

With prodigious seam and swing along with variable bounce on offer under overcast conditions, India wasted no time in running through the Ireland batting line-up. Arshdeep got extra bounce on a length ball to extract a top edge from a slog by Ireland skipper Paul Stirling and it landed safely in Rishabh Pant's gloves.

Arshdeep beat both Andrew Balbirnie and Lorcan Tucker in his next over, and the pacer ended the former’s stay by beating his outside edge to crash into the off-stump. With Arshdeep getting extra bounce consistently and Jasprit Bumrah getting the ball to jag both ways, things became more dire for Ireland.

Tucker went for a big booming drive off Hardik Pandya but was castled through the gate by a fuller delivery. Bumrah joined the wicket-taking party when Harry Tector’s top edge on a pull was caught by a short extra cover.

Wickets continued to tumble for Ireland as Pandya had Curtis Campher nicking behind to Pant and got Mark Adair to toe-end a cut to deep point running in, while Mohammed Siraj got George Dockrell to give a top-edge to mid-on and Axar Patel took a brilliant catch off his own bowling to see Barry McCarthy’s back quickly.

Joshua Little and Gareth Delany had a 27-run partnership off 18 balls for the ninth wicket, including hitting three boundaries, which got the side to go past the 68-run mark, which is their lowest T20I total.

Bumrah ended the partnership by clattering the base of Little’s stumps with a 145kmph yorker. Delany hit Arshdeep for two fours and a six before he was run out for 14-ball 26 as India ended Ireland’s chaotic innings.

Brief scores: Ireland 96 all out in 16 overs (Gareth Delany 26; Hardik Pandya 3-27, Jasprit Bumrah 2-6) lost to India: 97 for 2 in 12.2 overs (Rohit Sharma 52 retired hurt, Rishabh Pant 36 not out). Agencies

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