AGENCY
NEW YORK: Skipper Rohit Sharma’s freak upper arm injury came as a dampener but India’s four-pronged pace attack was too deadly for an out-of-depth Ireland during a walk-in-the park eight-wicket victory in their opening game of the T20 World Cup here on Wednesday.
The ‘Men in Blue’ will indeed have some sleepless nights going into the Pakistan game on June 9 after Rohit’s injury.
The Mumbai man had to leave the field after a well-compiled half-century (52 off 37 balls) as he missed a pull shot off a short-pitched delivery from Gujarat Titans pacer Josh Little.
The ball hit him on the upper part of his right-arm left Rohit in considerable pain.
On a drop-in track that offered variable bounce and extra seam movement, Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj didn’t even need to bring in their ‘A’ game.
Arshdeep Singh and a rejuvenated Hardik Pandya were good enough to dismantle the Irish for 96 in just 16 overs.
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) didn’t give any breathing space to Irish batters who were made to look like novices in front of swing, seam and extra bounce produced during the 14 out of 16 overs that they bowled.
Such was their plight as none of the Irish batters save Gareth Delany (26 n.o, 14 balls) could even cross the 20-run mark.
Delany’s innings took them close to the 100-run mark.
Later, Rohit entertained the crowd with his customary pull-shots which found their appointed place in the semi-empty make-shift stands to complete the chase in 12.2 overs. Virat Kohli (1) and Suryakumar Yadav (2) missed out on some batting practice while Rishabh Pant (36 not out) was generally good in his first outing as No. 3.
