India lost their first-ever international match to Ireland by 34 runs. A quick glance at the wagon wheel will tell you why. Ireland scored 23 more than India in the "V" down the ground. Not only was the straight boundary the shorter one, the pitch also was slower than the ones India have been playing on for months in recent times.
India, who got off to a great start with the ball and reduced Ireland to 30 for 3, let Ireland hit down the ground in the second half. Ireland kept making India hit square, who kept getting caught at the boundary, reminding us what a high-variance game T20 is. The outcome can swing wildly with a little bit of tinkering with the conditions, and Ireland's experience of their home conditions turned out to be critical.
India's new captain Shreyas Iyer, who started the day registering the record for returning straight as a captain after missing the most number of matches (63), ended it with an undesired trend: the last three world champions have now lost their first match after the triumph. All three have been upsets: England to Bangladesh, India to Zimbabwe, and now this.
Shreyas, who himself holed out to deep square leg, was spot on with his assessment. "I think initially the bowlers were bowling venom," he told the broadcast. "They got lethal, and they got a couple of wickets as well. So we got a tremendous start, but in between, we lost execution. We made them hit straight down the ground where we know that the dimensions are pretty small."
Shreyas admitted 140 was close to a par score, but India ended up conceding 183. Shreyas himself made calls that hurt his side. The tall Shivam Dube might not have the high pace, but was using the conditions well by bowling into the pitch for figures of 3-0-18-1 when Shreyas called upon offspinner Washington Sundar to bowl for the first time in the 16th over. With two right-hand batters at the wicket, this was as inexplicable a move as you can expect from someone with Shreyas' pedigree as a captain in the IPL. "Great start as a captain," he joked. "Great start."
"You can't take anything for granted," Shreyas said. "You can't just turn up and win matches, you have to work hard and see to it that you're in that moment. If you've got that opportunity to squeeze the opponent, we've gotta do that, and yeah, never take any moment or situation lightly."
It is easier to lose matches of T20 cricket than longer formats, but the way India, who last lost a T20 series in August 2023, gave up a dominant position should not sit well with the leadership. In order to defend that record, they have a quick turnaround to make adjustments to the conditions and questions to answer. And they go beyond whether Vaibhav Sooryavanshi plays and in whose place.