Lorcan Tucker's 94* powers Ireland's massive win

Lorcan Tucker's unbeaten 94 led Ireland to a 96-run win over Oman, their first victory of the T20 World Cup, keeping them mathematically in contention in Group B.

Ireland posted 235 for 5 after being put in to bat—their highest T20I total and the second-highest in T20 World Cup history. Tucker's 94* is also the highest score by an Irish batter in a T20 World Cup match.

Oman showed brief fight during the powerplay, with Aamir Kaleem and Hammad Mirza attacking the bowlers to reach 63 in six overs—the highest powerplay score of the tournament so far—despite losing two early wickets to Ashish Odedara.

The 73-run stand between Kaleem and Mirza kept Oman in the chase, but after Kaleem fell in the 11th over, the innings collapsed. Ireland took six wickets in the next five overs, reducing Oman to 121 for 9 by the 16th over. Josh Little finished with three wickets.

Despite the comprehensive win, Ireland’s fielding remained poor, dropping three catches to bring their tournament total to 10 drops—the most by any team.

Earlier, Shakeel Ahmed struck three times in five overs to disrupt Ireland’s aggressive start. However, Tucker, captaining in his first T20I in place of the injured Paul Stirling, spearheaded a recovery with Gareth Delany.

The pair batted sensibly until the 16th over, accelerating in the 11th with a six each off Nadeem Khan. Tucker reached his half-century in the 14th over and then unleashed a brutal assault in the final three overs, plundering 26 and 21 runs off Mohammed Nadeem and Jiten Ramanandi respectively. George Dockrell added three consecutive sixes to finish the innings.

With this loss, Oman’s hopes of advancing to the next round are mathematically over.

Brief Scores:
Ireland 235/5 in 20 overs (Lorcan Tucker 94, Gareth Delany 56; Shakeel Ahmed 3-33) beat Oman 139 in 20 overs (Aamir Kaleem 50, Hammad Mirza 46; Josh Little 3-16, Matthew Humphreys 2-27) by 96 runs.