Ireland captain Andy Balbirnie admitted that they should have been at the top of their game against a potent team like India. The hosts lost the first T20I by seven wickets at the Village, Dublin on Sunday. Ireland posted a fighting score of 108-4 runs in a rain-curtailed match of 12 overs/side.

The home team got off to a horrible start as Bhuvneshwar Kumar send back the Ireland captain Andy Balbirnie back to the pavilion with a peach of a delivery, which came back into the right-hander to clip the top of off-stump. Subsequently, Hardik Pandya became India’s first T20I captain to take a wicket as he accounted for Paul Stirling.

Avesh Khan also took a wicket in his first over as he dismissed Gareth Delany. However, Ireland bounced back stronger as Harry Tector was able to hit the ground running after he scored two boundaries against Axar Patel through the cover region. Tector added 50 runs with Lorcan Tucker for the fourth wicket to give some impetus to Ireland’s innings.

Tector, the 22-year-old youngster impressed everyone with his stroke play as he scored 64 runs from only 33 balls to help the Irish team get past the 100-run mark.

However, India convincingly chased down the score within 10 overs after Ishan Kishan, Deepak Hooda and Hardik Pandya scored valuable runs.

Andy Balbirnie said in the post-match presentation, “Never easy when you come to the ground, do your full warmup and it’s delayed. Credit to the groundsmen. Tector batted outstandingly well to get up to the total. We were good and we were bad. Against a team like India you have to be good. Harry’s been in great form in ODI cricket and he carried that today.”

Ireland would be happy with Harry Tector’s batting performance and he certainly showed a lot of promise. The home team will look to come up with a more collective effort in the second T20I and challenge the visitors.

The second and final match between these two teams will take place at the same venue on Tuesday.