Irish Cricket's Valiant Effort Falls Short: England Triumph In 2nd ODI

image-lmxha5tsEngland vs Ireland, 2nd ODI (X.com)

The second ODI of the England vs Ireland ODI series at Trent Bridge resulted in England defeating Ireland by 48 runs. With this victory England took an early lead in the series. England started dominating the Irish bowling attack. Will Jacks and Sam hain played great knocks to make sure England reach a great total. The cameos of Ben Duckett and Brydon Carse were also effective in England reaching a huge total of 334. 

Ireland on the other hand did look good in certain stages and formed some decent partnerships in the middle. There were some valiant contributions from Harry Tector, George Dockrell, Barry McCarthy and Craig Young. However it was not enough as Ireland were bowled out for 286 in 46.4 overs falling 48 runs of the total. This innings still shows how Ireland are still capable of being one of the dark horses in international cricket.

Green Wave: Tracking Ireland's Innings

Ireland still surprised England with the amount of depth they had in their batting and it will be interesting to see how their innings progressed throughout the game. The first 10 overs Ireland still managed to score 80 runs for the loss of 3 wickets. Even though losing 3 wickets in the powerplay would have put them under a bit of pressure, they still had accumulated enough runs to stay in the game. 

In fact they were even ahead of England in terms of runs at this stage. The period between 10 to 20 was where Ireland started to lose their grip on the game where they were stuck at 124-5. They could only score another 44 runs with the loss of 2 more wickets. The next 10 overs were slightly better in terms of runs due to George Dockrell looking to build the Irish innings, but the Irish innings was still trailing at 179-7. Even though the 55 runs were important, there were still two early wickets that shifted the momentum towards England. 

The period between 30 to 40 saw some decent partnerships forming at the lower order through which Ireland did manage to score another 62 runs. However the loss of wickets again hurt Ireland’s hope and they were still struggling at 241-9. The next 6.4 overs saw another good partnership between Young at number 10 and Little at number 11. Though this was a great effort by the duo putting up 55 runs for the last wicket, it was still too little too late for Ireland.

Conclusion

This might not be the best display of batting by Ireland, but it still gives us a glimpse of how deep their batting line-up is. There were still some batters who got starts and were looking good in the middle. There were batters with quick 20’s, 30’s and 40’s who had to convert those scores into big scores to chase a mammoth total by England. It was still great to see all the batters right from opener to tail- enders to try and keep their side in the game despite losing wickets at regular intervals.

In conclusion, the Irish just needed one batter to score big or one big partnership to get closer to the target. Losing wickets in the middle at crucial moments did not help their cause as well which led to them losing the game and giving England a 1-0 lead in the series.