Jai Mundra eliminated both the openers in the first over itself.Image Credit source: Getty Images
India vs Ireland 2nd T20I: Who knew that the explosive batsmen of the two-time T20 World Champion Team India would look distraught in front of Ireland too. Who would have thought that Team India would lose in the first match in Ireland and its condition would become weak in the second also. But the game of cricket is such that what we don’t think about, happens. After losing the first match to Ireland, the Indian top order got defeated in the second T20 also. Ireland’s new bowler Jai Mundhra returned Sanju Samson and Abhishek Sharma without opening the account in the first over of the innings.
Team India, which came out to level the T20 series in Belfast, stopped Ireland by a big score in the second match but its batsmen disappointed again. In the last match of the series on Sunday 28 June, Ireland batted first and scored 154 runs. But after this, when the Indian team came out to chase the target, its strength reduced in the first 4 balls and the reason for this was Indian origin fast bowler Jai Mundra, who had made his debut in the last match itself.
Mundra disposes of Samson-Abhishek in 4 balls
In the last match, Mundra bowled the second over of the innings and bowled Sanju Samson on the very first ball of his career. He did the same miracle again. The difference was that this time he bowled the first over of the innings and got Samson out LBW on the very first ball. Samson could not even open his account and became the victim of ‘Golden Duck’.
But not only Sanju, his opening partner also met with the same fate. On the fourth ball of the same over, Abhishek came on strike for the first time and played a high shot off Mundra’s ball. Matthew Hollard took an excellent catch while running behind and Abhishek was also out on a ‘golden duck’. In this way, Team India lost the wickets of both the openers in just 4 balls.
Pavilion returned to Iyer too
Not only this, Mundra stopped and in his next over (third over of the innings) he also sent the new Indian captain Shreyas Iyer back to the pavilion. While trying to play a cut shot on his ball, Iyer missed and the ball hit his bat and entered the stumps. Iyer failed for the second consecutive match and was out after scoring only 10 runs.
Team India’s condition is so bad
- The effect of Jai Mundra’s havoc was that for the first time after 2023, both the openers of the Indian team failed to open the account. Earlier this had happened against South Africa, Shubman Gill and Yashasvi Jaiswal were out at 0-0.
- This is only the second time in international cricket, when both the openers of an ICC full member team were out on ‘golden duck’. The last time this situation happened to Bangladesh was in 2018, when West Indies had eliminated both its openers on the first ball.
- On the other hand, Sanju Samson became the first Indian opener to be out twice on the first ball of the innings.
- Abhishek Sharma is also not behind in terms of records. This is his sixth ‘duck’ in T20 International this year (highest for India) and 9th ‘duck’ in overall T20, which is equal to the world record.
