There were no surprises as far as the result of the match is concerned. But there were certainly some massive surprises in the team selection. Dinesh Karthik and KL Rahul who were both coming off stellar IPL performances were benched and rather Manish Pandey and Suresh Raina found a place in the playing XI.
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India being put in to bat first, Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan started cautiously with the first over going for only one run. However, once the two had a hang of the situation, they started playing their strokes.
It was surprise when Suresh Raina came out to bat at one down instead of skipper Virat Kohli. All the same, he could not leave an impact as the southpaw was dismissed after hitting a couple of boundaries.
Chahal and Kuldeep bowled well as always as the Irish batsmen, quite expectedly, failed to pick up their variations. After India’s 76 run victory, Captain Kohli was beaming at the post-match press conference.
When asked about the team’s performance, a confident Kohli said, “Pretty good and can’t complain. We were pretty good with the bat although the last over by Ireland was spot on.”
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The Captain also praised the openers for their efforts and cautioned the opposition teams to be up and ready for surprises, “Great effort from Rohit and Dhawan. Look, we’ve already announced we will experiment with the middle order a lot. Even in the next few T20 games, even in England, we will look to throw in guys and surprise the opposition.
Kohli somewhat acknowledged the fact that it came as a surprise when Karthik and Rahul were not picked in the XI. Without mincing words, he gave a clear signal that the two will in all probability find a place in the playing XI of the next match.
“It presents an opportunity for those lower down the order to go in and bat at the top. In the next games, we will play the guys who din’t play today. We’re going to give everyone a go in this series. The management and me as captain decided it. There’re no mysteries and looking everyone to give game time,” the skipper concluded.
