After making a solid half-century (52 off 37 balls), the Mumbai player was forced to leave the field because he mishandled a pull shot off a short-pitched delivery.
India’s opening T20 World Cup match saw them win easily by eight wickets, despite skipper Rohit Sharma’s bizarre upper arm injury being a dampener. India’s four-pronged pace attack was too deadly for an out-of-depth Ireland. In fact, with Rohit hurt, the “Men in Blue” will be restless leading up to their June 9 match against Pakistan. Josh Little of the Gujarat Titans sent the Mumbai player a short-pitched delivery that he could not pull off, forcing him to leave the field after making a solid half-century (52 off 37 balls).
Rohit was in excruciating pain after the ball struck the upper portion of his right arm.
It was not even necessary for Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj to bring their “A” game on a drop-in course that provided increased seam movement and varying bounce.
The Irish were destroyed for 96 runs in just 16 overs by Arshdeep Singh and a revived Hardik Pandya.
With swing, seam, and additional bounce produced in 14 of the 16 overs that they bowled, Irish batsmen were rendered look like amateurs by Arshdeep (2/35 in 4 overs), Pandya (3/27 in 4 overs), Siraj (1/13 in 3 overs), and Bumrah (2/6 in 3 overs).
That was the extent of their predicament, as none of the Irish batsmen could score more than 20 runs, with the exception of Gareth Delany (26 not out of 14 balls).
They came very nearly to reaching 100 runs during Delany’s innings.
The chase was eventually completed in 12.2 overs because to Rohit’s later, semi-absentee pull strokes, which delighted the spectators.
While Rishabh Pant (36 not out) played well in his debut appearance as the No. 3, Virat Kohli (1) and Suryakumar Yadav (2) did not get much batting practise.
The partisan Indian spectators, many of whom having taken a mid-week leave went home happy.
A lot of doubts will be raised regarding the Nassau County ground’s preparation for the most anticipated match of the tournament, which is India vs. Pakistan, in three days. This is due to the playing conditions and the inconsistent bounce provided by the drop-in track.
Any hitter could sense that they may get hurt in these conditions, whether it was on their arm like Rohit or on their forearm and knuckle like Pant. There were deliveries that were flying off from length and a handful that didn’t rise past knee roll.
As Arshdeep bowled the white Kookaburra for the perfect length of a Test match, Rohit struck it lucky with the coin and the cloudy conditions were exactly what help Arshdeep needed.
For the most part, his deliveries were pitched up and reared up from length, which made life difficult for Paul Stirling and Andrew Balbirnie, the more experienced pair.
The two openers found it tough to even put bat on balls that were jagging around, which allowed Rishabh Pant to dive full stretch on both sides of the track. It only helped that Mohammed Siraj also maintained the unrelenting pressure from the other end.
Stirling attempted to drag one that came down on him from a considerable distance, and Pant sprinted back to catch the skier.
The ‘one-leg’ posture that Balbirnie had chosen to counter Arshdeep proved to be an ineffective tactic, as the bowler pitched one that was pitched on middle and drifted slightly towards off, leaving the batter unable to cover the line of swing with any kind of footwork.
Ireland’s Powerplay went terribly wrong, finishing at 26 for 2, and they were unable to recover.
Using a shaky seam and a superb nip-backer, Pandya, the second change pacer, broke through Lorcan Tucker’s defence.
Then, Bumrah used a terrible bouncer that grabbed Harry Tector’s gloves and nearly blew his head off the helmet, leaving a scar on an already-shook Tector.
Ireland, who had recently defeated Pakistan in a Twenty20 International at home, were 49 for 6 at the midway point, and the match was already heavily unbalanced.
The fact that Pandya bowled his allotted overs and struck some long balls throughout his time was the game’s greatest asset. It will allow his captain to use an extra batter or bowler in future games depending on the conditions.
His three dismissals came from distinct deliveries: the swing in the first, the seam in the second, and the extra bounce in the third.
