England T20I opener Phil Salt hammered a brilliant 89, which helped his side beat Ireland in the 1st T20I at The Village in Dublin on Wednesday. Chasing a target of 197 runs, Phil Salt‘s knock and contributions from Jos Buttler, Jacob Bethell, and Sam Curran, helped England win by 4 wickets. Phil Salt was the chief contributor for his side.
Phil Salt’s knock of 89 came from 46 balls with 10 fours and six sixes. Salt hit his 6th T20I fifty. In addition, he owns 4 hundreds. The England opener Phil Salt has raced to 1,423 runs at 38.45. His strike rate is 170.82. In T20s all over including League cricket, Phil Salt has amassed 7,763 runs from 308 matches (299 innings). This was his 50th fifty in T20s (100s: 4).
England began their T20I series in style, chasing down a target of 197 comfortably in sunny Malahide, taking a 1-0 lead with 14 balls remaining against Ireland. Phil Salt, who had scored his fourth T20I century in the previous game against South Africa, carried on in electrifying form with a scorching 89 off only 46 balls, just falling short of making an English record of most T20I tons
Pitch Report and Toss
Pitch Report : “The pitch has a lovely uniform tinge. It has a green covering to it. The seamers will get some help. The average innings first innings score is 163. Ireland haven’t won against a full member nation here and they will have all to do,” reckons Alan Wilkins in his pitch report.
Toss : England’s new young skipper Jacob Bethell won the toss and chose to bowl with 3spinners in the Playing XI. Ireland skipper Paul Stirling who also wanted to bowl first said they are missing their two experienced bowlers in form of Mark Adair and Josh Little.
Harry Tector’s 61* & Lorcan Tucker’s 55 powers Ireland to 196 for 3 in 20 overs
England handed the captaincy to 21-year-old Bethell, who became the youngest men’s T20I skipper for his country. His first assignment was to field after winning the toss. Ireland had posted a competitive 196/3, built around Harry Tector’s unbeaten 61 off 36 balls and Lorcan Tucker’s explosive 55 off 36 deliveries. The pair added 123 runs for the fourth wicket after Ireland had slipped to 67/2.
Ireland’s innings got off to a solid start with Paul Stirling and Ross Adair putting on 57 for the opening wicket. However, both fell in quick succession.
Stirling, Ireland’s captain, said his players were “underprepared” heading into this series after a sparse summer schedule, but looked ready enough when slapping the first legal ball through point. After three steady overs, he launched Liam Dawson into the hospitality tent at long-off for the first of 12 sixes in Ireland’s innings, before depositing Curran over midwicket.
Ross Adair, his opening partner, slog-swept Dawson to deep midwicket to fall for 26 after tucking into Overton, but Stirling continued on his merry way. He belted his third and fourth sixes off Rashid and Dawson respectively, and it took a sharp catch from Will Jacks on the long-on boundary to prevent his fifth as he fell for 34 off 22.
Tector and Lorcan Tucker could have been forgiven for consolidating. They saw things differently: Tector slog-swept Rashid for six two balls after Stirling’s dismissal, reached out to drive Rehan’s first ball through cover for four, and watched Tucker whip Curran past short fine leg.
Lorcan Tucker was given out lbw when struck on the pad by Rashid’s legbreak, but successfully overturned the decision on review and went on the attack as Luke Wood returned. They found fifth gear at the death, bringing up half-centuries off 34 (Tector) and 35 balls (Tucker) as the final three overs went for 45, with George Dockrell hitting his only ball – the last – for six.
Tector and Tucker’s partnership was worth 123 off 68 balls, Ireland’s highest stand against any opponent for the third wicket. It was their second-highest total at Malahide, but proved insufficient.
Tector hit a massive 36-ball 61*. His knock had six fours and two sixes. He struck at 169.44. With this effort, Tector has surpassed 1,500 runs in T20Is. In 86 matches (78 innings), he owns 1,504 runs at 23.50. This was his 6th fifty in T20Is. As per ESPNcricinfo, overall in T20s, he has amassed 2,757 runs from 148 matches at 25.52 (50s: 11).
On the other hand, Tucker hit a 36-ball 55. His knock consisted of three fours and four sixes. In 146 T20 matches, Tucker has raced to 2,531 runs at 23.26. This was his 13th T20 fifty. 1,419 of Tucker’s T20 runs have come for Ireland in T20Is at 21.83. This was his 10th T20I fifty.
Lorcan Tucker and Harry Tector then took charge, keeping the tempo high with a range of shots. The pair stayed together until the penultimate ball of the innings, powering Ireland to a good total on a good batting surface before Salt’s brilliance made light work of the chase.
Phil Salt’s Assault grants England a 4 wicket win over Ireland to go 1-0 up the series
Phil Salt and Buttler put on 126 off 47 balls in England’s record-breaking blitz against South Africa on Friday night, and played with the same aggressive intent against an understrength attack. Their opening stand was worth 74 in 28 balls, and they were briefly on track to threaten the record Powerplay score of 100 for 0 they set in Manchester.
Phil Salt launched Barry McCarthy for two sixes in his first over, and Buttler treated Graham Hume’s medium pace with utter disdain. He plundered 22 runs from the third over of the innings, with four fours and a six over wide long-off, but could not resist the temptation to keep swinging against Matthew Humphreys and miscued a catch to midwicket.
Buttler’s dismissal left Salt as the senior player in England’s batting line-up, and he throttled back after reaching a 20-ball 50 – one ball slower than he managed last week. He continued to put loose balls away, with back-to-back boundaries off Craig Young to bring up England’s team hundred inside eight overs, but gave the strike to his partners.
England’s intent was clear right from the start of the chase. Phil Salt and Jos Buttler hammered 74 in just 4.3 overs to flatten Ireland’s new-ball hopes. Buttler fell for a 10-ball 28 but Phil Salt carried on, peppering the boundary with ten fours and four sixes. His clean ball-striking left Ireland searching for answers as the required rate dropped rapidly.
Rehan Ahmed was promoted to No. 4 in his first international appearance since November, but made little impact. After bowling a solitary wicketless over, he was adjudged not out by an inconclusive replay when slicing Gareth Delany’s legspin to Hume at short third, but was bowled by one that kept low when charging two balls later.
Perhaps the turning point came when Phil Salt, on 51, picked out deep midwicket off a high full toss from Tector, spearing his part-time offbreaks in from around the wicket. The umpires checked for a high full-toss, only to discover that Tector had overstepped; from that point until his dismissal, Phil Salt did not offer another chance.
England started strongly with Phil Salt and Buttler adding 74 runs inside 5 overs. Buttler perished for 28 before Bethell joined Phil Salt and added 46 runs.After Rehan Ahmed’s dismissal next (130/3), Salt and Curran added 50 runs as England powered their way through. Both Curran and Phil Salt perished in quick succession before England lost another wicket.However, they got the job done.
Sam Curran holed out for 27 looking to hit Hume for a third consecutive six, and his dismissal sparked a minor England wobble, losing three wickets in 10 balls including Salt slicing to deep point. But Jamie Overton belted Barry McCarthy over mid-on to take them home, hardly breaking a sweat in the process.
Sam Curran chipped in with a brisk 27 off 15 and Jacob Bethell, on captaincy debut, contributed 24 off 16 to keep the chase in control. Ireland did manage to claw back a few wickets in the middle, including Phil Salt falling short of a hundred, but by then the game was as good as done. Jamie Overton applied the finishing touches with a six and a four, taking England home in the 18th over.
Presentations and Road Ahead
Paul Stirling the Losing Ireland skipper said : We will take all those positives. We are happy to go out there and play over the course of the 3-match series. Don’t think could have asked for more. It was a bit tricky. We were pretty happy with that total. We were not lucky in the second innings. We kept trying to get wickets. There’s no point in being defensive. We take the positives and move on to the next game. We’ll try to improve. Really proud how we played today.
Jacob Bethell the Winning England skipper said : Yeah, definitely. It feels pretty special. And obviously, like you said, to win the first one is always nice. Great feeling, and I can’t wait to get going again on Friday. I think coming to this ground it was a bit unknown, we didn’t really know how the wicket would play, or how the dimensions would come into it. But now, going into Friday and Sunday, we definitely know how to defend better here and how to take wickets at this ground.
I think their (England openers) partnership average is about 55 or something like that. Crazy numbers, ridiculous strike rate. For me personally, batting after them is pretty nice. And we’ve got so much depth as well, so it means everyone in the top order can go really hard. The focus is on winning, let’s see what happens next. The atmosphere here is lovely, hopefully the crowd will be sold out on Friday.
Phil Salt Player of the Match for his 89 runs said : Enjoyed that. Pretty good wicket, it’s a good ground to bat on. It was good fun. That’s the way we play. We try to take on the bowlers pretty early. Looks good when it works. It was a good effort by them. They batted well to get to that total. I don’t have to start thinking like that. Happy to win the first game of the series. They (Ireland bowlers) are going to have different plans against us. It’s a game of cat and mouse. It’s a bilateral series.
Phil Salt continued from where he left off against South Africa with another blazing knock as England got past Ireland by four wickets in the first T20I in Malahide. Chasing 197, England rode on Phil Salt’s 89 off 46 to wrap up the game with 14 balls to spare and take a 1-0 lead in the three-match series. This was also the first time in six T20Is that England defeated a European nation in the format.
England made light work of chasing 197 in sunny Malahide, sauntering home with 14 balls unused to take a 1-0 lead over Ireland. Fresh from his fourth T20 international hundred at Old Trafford on Friday night, Phil Salt fell just short of a record-equalling fifth but his 89 from 46 balls underpinned a chase that proved much simpler than the margin suggests.
It made for a serene start to life as an international captain for Jacob Bethell who, at 21, became the youngest man to lead England, deputising for Harry Brook. His own contribution was a cameo of 24 from No. 3, which featured one of the day’s 22 sixes with a crisply-struck slog-sweep over the temporary stand at midwicket, before he chipped to extra cover.
Bethell’s first act was to send Ireland into bat on a green-tinged surface, anticipating early movement after overnight rain. His bowling changes did little to limit the damage inflicted by Paul Stirling, Harry Tector and Lorcan Tucker as Ireland posted 196, but Malahide’s short boundaries and Phil Salt’s rich form ensured that they were at least 20 runs light.
“I was quite disappointed at Trent Bridge not to get out there and have a chance to win a series against South Africa, but at the same time, I’m pleased that we’ve come here and chased down those runs in quite a professional way,” Salt said. “I’m really pleased to finish the job off in the way we did.”
Curiously, this was England’s first win in this format over their close neighbours, after a no-result and a DLS defeat at the 2010 and 2022 T20 World Cups. In the injured pair of Mark Adair and Josh Little, Ireland were without both of their opening bowlers from the more recent meeting at the MCG three years ago; their attack looked toothless in their absence.
Just a few days ago, England rewrote the record books by piling up more than 300 runs in a T20I against South Africa. Today, they have shown the same firepower, brushing aside a target of 197 with absolute ease. A side capable of posting 300 against South Africa was always likely to find a chase of 190-odd against Ireland well within their reach.
Phil Salt lit up that record-breaking game against SA with a stunning century, and he’s come good once again for England in this game. Ireland’s top-order did their part to set up a decent score, but once Buttler and Salt cut loose in the powerplay, the contest quickly tilted England’s way.
Ireland did hit back with a few wickets following the powerplay, but England’s explosive start meant they were always in control of the chase. Phil Salt may have fallen short of a century, but England barely broke a sweat, wrapping up the chase inside 18 overs. England claimed a commanding win, while Ireland will be keen to bounce back and level the series in the next match.
Also Read: ENG vs SA: England Aim To Clinch Series Against Battered & Bruised South Africa