What a day it was for Irish cricket on Friday evening. For the first time in their history, they beat India at Stormont, Belfast. Defeating the world’s best team is a dream all minnows live by, and the 12th-ranked Irish side – before the contest — made it a reality. Former Ireland batsman Ed Joyce was ecstatic following the team’s 34-run win against Shreyas Iyer’s men. The 47-year-old, who also played for England but was born and brought up in Ireland, Dublin to be precise, was ecstatic and hopeful that in the future Team India would tour the country more often. At present, the Indian teams go there before a series in England.
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“The Ireland men’s and women’s teams have had good results over the past two or three years, and we shouldn’t forget that, but it’s important we keep getting results against these teams – India, England and Australia,” Joyce said on BBC Radio Ulster.
“The three big powers of the world game. To go out and compete against them is really important for us. This is a huge result. Hopefully, it means India will come back and play us a lot more,” he added.
The India tour!
Joyce, who played one Test, 78 ODIs and 18 T20Is and played ODIs and T20Is for England first before moving to the country of his birth, also hoped that one day the Irish would tour India for a bilateral series. Ireland is now a Test nation, and Joyce’s dream is not something that can’t be achieved. Afghanistan recently toured India for one Test and three ODIs. In 2018, they had toured India too and played a Test match. But for that to happen, Ireland need to come up with impressive results against big teams quite frequently. “Dare I say we’d love an Irish team to go out and tour India at some point, that would be fantastic,” Joyce said.
In the Irish win, Lorcan Tucker, captaining full-time for the first time, played an important hand of 50 off 36 balls. Gareth Delany was another batter who made a difference with 49 off 32 balls. When India came to chase down the target, they ran into Matthew Humphreys and Jai Moondra. The pacers shared five wickets between them to orchestrate a famous win for the Irish. Moondra is actually of Indian origin (born in Tonk, Rajasthan) and moved to Ireland five years ago to study.