England beat Ireland by four wickets first men’s T20 international – as it happened
That’s your lot,I’ll leave you with Taha Hashim’s report,Bye!The player of the match is Phil SaltI enjoyed that,It was a pretty good wicket and it’s a good ground to bat on when you get going,Yeah.
good fun,[On his partnership with Jos Buttler] That’s the way we play I suppose,We both try to take it on really early, and when it works it looks good,[On missing out on a century] Ah, potentially,But I don’t want to start thinking like that – we won the first game of the series and I’m happy with that.
It feels pretty special [to captain England], and to win the first one is always nice.Great feeling and I can’t want to get going again on Friday.Coming off the field we probably thought Ireland had got a few too many, but the conditions here were a bit of an unknown.Now, going into Friday and Sunday.we know how to defend and take wickets at this place.
[On Salt and Buttler] I think their average opening partnership is about 55 with a ridiculous strike rate, so for me personally batting after them is pretty nice! We’ve also got a lot of depth which means everyone can go really hard.I said to a couple of the guys, there’s aren’t many sports where you get the two extremes: ou get the proper big stadiums and then you get to bring it back home almost to a ground like this.It’s a lovely ground and I’ve heard Friday and Sunday are sold out so hopefully the atmosphere will be even better.Paul Stirling’s reactionThere were multiple positives to take and hopefully across the three games we can improve.We were pretty happy with 196 – but we also knew we had to get everything right in the field, and we didn’t quite manage that.
We kept trying to take wickets,That’s all you can do in cricket these days – there’s no point being ultra-defensive,We’ve got a big winter ahead of us and this is the start of that,The matchwinner – stop me if you think etc – was Phil Salt, who pannelled89 from 46 balls to take England to the brink of victory,His last two T20 innings have yielded 230 runs for one dismissal from 106 balls, with 25 fours, 12 sixes and umpteen statgasms.
17th over: England 197-6 (Jacks 1, Overton 4) Overton hustles a full toss from McCarthy down the ground for four to complete a comfortable win for England in Jacob Bethell’s first game as captain,17th over: England 191-6 (Jacks 0, Overton 0) That was the last ball of the over,The margin of victory/defeat will flatter Ireland a touch; equally, they’ve done well to take it this deep because at one stage they were disappearing for a boundary a ball,WHATEVER HAPPENED TO RED-INK CULTURE? Tom Banton reverses Humphreys for a couple of boundaries before blasting straight to mid-on,He could have milked a single and got a nice not out.
16th over: England 181-5 (Salt 89, Curran 15) Hume’s figures now look a bit healthier: 2-0-36-2.Still bonkers, but nowhere near as grisly as they were after two balls of the over.No century for Phil Salt! It’s almost a shock to type that given how comfortable he looked.But he chased a very wide, very full ball from Hume and sliced it straight to Adair at deep backward point.Salt whacks his bat angrily on the way off; his standards are so high these days that 89 isn’t good enough.
Poor Graham Hume is having a day to forget.His first over was Buttlered for 22; now Sam Curran has hit him for successive sixes at the start of the second.They’re two superb shots, pulled over square leg and lasered over extra cover, and as I type Hume is nursing figures of 1.2-0-35-0.It’s nothing personal, just Baziness.
Hume eventually catches a break when Curran, aiming for his third straight six, picks out Dockrell on the midwicket boundary.15th over: England 167-3 (Salt 89, Curran 15) Curran deposits Humphreys over long-on for his first six, which means all 10 players who have had a bat today have hit at least one six.But only one has a chance of making a century; Salt is now 11 away with 30 runs needed for victory.14th over: England 154-3 (Salt 84, Curran 6) Salt biffs McCarthy to deep extra cover and races back for the second.The umpire checks for the run-out but it’s a precautionary measure; Salt was comfortably home.
McCarthy is about to bowl to Salt when the wind blows one of the bails off; he jokingly raises the finger to give Salt out.Salt smiles and whacks the next ball for four.He’s 15 away from a century.13th over: England 147-3 (Salt 78, Curran 6) Glenn Maxwell and Rohit Sharma have a record five T20I centirues from 114 and 151 innings respectively.This is Salt’s 43rd T20I innings, and he didn’t score his first hundred until the 18th.
What he’s doing is barely legal.It’d be funny if, after all this premature statgasming, England went on to lose the game.They need 50 from 42 balls.12th over: England 141-3 (Salt 76, Curran 2) Salt is denied another boundary, this time off Young, by a spectacular diving stop from Campher at cow corner.The upshot is one of the few boundaryless overs of the day.
“Afternoon Rob,” writes Kimberley Thonger,“Can you pull any strings and please get a message sent out from the England dressing room for them to slow the scoring rate a bit? My daughter-in-law is in labour and I need to be distracted from that as long as possible,It’s not much to ask is it? They’ll have polished this total off before she’s even started pushing properly if something isn’t said,”Congratulations! I’ll try to telepathise this to Phil Salt,11th over: England 137-3 (Salt 73, Curran 1) Salt deposits a long hop into the crowd to move to 73 from 31 balls.
The fella needs help, he can’t stop committing acts of violence against a cricket ball,The legspinner Gareth Delany, playing his 100th white-ball international for Ireland, comes tantalisingly close to taking a wicket with his first ball,Rehan sliced him towards short third, where Hume swooped forward to grab the ball very close to the ground,Hume shook his head, unconvinced it was a clean catch,The umpires went upstairs anyway; the replays were inconclusive and Rehan was given not out.
Not that it made much difference, even in the short term.Two balls later Rehan charged Delany, missed a sinew-straining smear and was bowled by a ball that kept a bit low.A nice moment for Delany on his landmark day.10th over: England 130-2 (Salt 67, Rehan 8) Rehan Ahmed pulls Curtis Campher’s second ball flat and hard for six.A single turns the strike over to Salt, who blisters another short ball to cow corner for four.
He needs 33 for another century.Even if he doesn’t achieve it, his T20 record is just silly.9th over: England 117-2 (Salt 61, Rehan 1) Rehan Ahmed is the new batter.This is the first time he’s batted higher than No8 for England in white-ball cricket, though he looks increasingly comfortable up the order for Leicestershire and Trent Rockets.Six and out for Jacob Bethell.
He hit 14 from three balls, culminating in a huge slog-swept six that necessitated a ball replacement, then sliced Tector straight to extra cover,So much for rotating the strike! But Bethell’s cameo of 24 from 16 balls has moved England closer to a crushing victory,8th over: England 102-1 (Salt 61, Bethell 10) Bethell is giving the strike to Salt at every opportunity, an obvious tactic but one that not all 21-year-old captains would care for on their big day,Salt carts Young to cow corner for four, just wide of the diving Campher near the boundary, then smears another past the bowler to bring up the hundred in 7,3 overs.
Salt has a chance of another century himself; it would be his fifth, equalling the record of Glenn Maxwell and Rohit Sharma,England need 95 from 72 balls,Don’t we all,7th over: England 91-1 (Salt 52, Bethell 8) That cock-up aside it’s a good first over from Tector, who is only an occasional offspinner,No boundaries, seven from it.
Salt slugs a high full toss from the offspinner Harry Tector to deep midwicket – but it’s a front-foot no-ball! Oh, Harry.6th over: England 84-1 (Salt 50, Bethell 5) Salt moves to a 20-ball fifty with a cut for four off McCarthy.Just another day at the T20 office for him.If he’s still in after 10 overs he’ll be eyeing his fifth T20I century.Salt might be England’s Heinrich Klaasen – not in style or role, but the man whose numbers blow the mind of neutrals around the world.
At the time of typing, he has a T20I average of 38 and a strike rate of 171.What even is that?“It must be so dispiriting to post a solid total and then in the space of 20 balls be staring down the barrel of a now near run-a-ball chase,” says Eddy Nason.“These two opening is a cheat code.”England may have to change their plans for the World Cup, which involved Ben Duckett opening, possibly Jamie Smith too.I guess Buttler will drop down to No3 but it must be tempting to keep cheating.
5th over: England 74-1 (Salt 45, Bethell 0) In statistical terms Salt and Buttler are the most devastating partnership in T20I history: 1145 runs at an average of 52 and a run-rate of 10.71.Both the average and the run-rate are the highest among pairs who have added at least 1000 runs.Usually on the OBO we try to provide at least a basic description of every boundary.You can sing for that today! Salt smashes Humphreys for four and six – but now Buttler has gone, caught at mid-on after being done in the flight by Humphreys.
Nicely bowled.Buttler made 28 from 10 balls, and now it’s time for England’s new captain to have a bat.4th over: England 63-0 (Salt 34, Buttler 28) Craig Young is the latest bowler to trry his luck.Salt lashes his first two balls for four, because in 2025 this is normal behaviour, apparently, but Young does well to stall England for the rest of the over.Now, who would like a statgasm? Since the start of the T20 against South Africa on Friday, Salt and Buttler have added 189 in 11.
5 overs.3rd over: England 52-0 (Salt 24, Buttler 27) Jos Buttler has been in awesome form of late, the cricketing embodiment of his famous mantra, and he has just belted Graham Hume’s first over for 24.Where to start? With the almost absent-minded swipe over mid-on for four, I guess.That was followed by an elegantly violent drive over long-off for six and a cuff through the coivers.Hume beat him with a slower ball; Buttler waved the next over mid-off before ending the over with a devastating straight hit for four.
Sheesh,Oh, that brought up the fifty partnership inside three overs,2nd over: England 30-0 (Salt 24, Buttler 5) Salt picks a slower ball from Barry McCarthy and desecrates it down the ground for six,He follows that with a brusque slap through extra cover and a brusque smear over midwicket for six more,The ball hit the rope on the half-volley.
1st over: England 11-0 (Salt 7, Buttler 4) Phil Salt makes a desperately slow start, taking THREE deliveries to hit his first boundary,Jos Buttler then cuts the last ball of the over, his first, sweetly for four more,Phil Salt and Jos Buttler, fresh from pulverising South Africa, walk out to begin the England runchase,Ireland will open up with the left-arm spinner Matthew Humphreys,20th over: Ireland 196-3 (Tector 61, Dockrell 6) George Dockrell strolls to the middle, picks Jamie Overton up over square leg for six and walks off
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