Former Indian Test opener Sadagopan Ramesh slammed India after they suffered a 34-run loss against Ireland at Belfast on Friday. India was stunned by the Irish team as the visitors were found wanting in the series opener.
The home team posted a par score of 182 runs on the board but the visitors were bundled out for 148. Barring Abhishek Sharma, who scored 50 runs off 20 balls, none of the other Indian batters could show any application.
India was not up to the mark in the run chase and had to pay the price.
Ramesh said on YouTube Channel, “Ireland deserve praise for using the bigger boundaries and testing the Indian batters out with the short delivery. It was clear that India played the match casually. They thought the Ireland series was a picnic tour, which they’ll win easily and were serious only about the England series. But Ireland taught India a lesson by saying this is no picnic spot.
“The Ireland series was not even originally scheduled. It was like a pickle to the main course, which was England. But India embarassingly couldn’t handle the spice of the pickle, which is Ireland. Irrespective of what excuses can be cooked up for this, it’s a shocking and terrible defeat for Team India. Overconfidence is never healthy and it’s because of that, India’s story was over last night. India must be confident but not overconfident.”
The former flamboyant opener added that losing to Ireland after playing T20 cricket continuously for four months, is unexplainable.
“Yes, even an elephant occasionally slips up. But how can it happen against an Ireland? This is a shocker, especially for a team whose last T20 match was the final of a World Cup. After a month of T20 cricket in the World Cup, all the Indian players played another 3 months of IPL. To play 4 months of continuous T20 cricket and then lose to Ireland is unexplainable,” said Ramesh (via the aforementioned source).
The former left-hander slammed India for their mundane performance in the field as they could not take their chances.
“India played shockingly poor cricket. They’ve been dropping catches from the T20 World Cup to the IPL to yesterday. They seem to always drop high catches. In the IPL, you can just bat or bowl and hide your fielding because of the Impact Player option. But in international cricket, you’ve to be a good fielder to be in the 11. Many players escaped in the IPL because of the Impact Player rule by just batting.”
The second T20I between Ireland and India will be played at Belfast on Sunday.
