Ireland chase bigger slice of history with series win up for grabs

It's been a historic few days for Irish cricket. First the men's team pulled off the unthinkable on Friday, getting the better of the incumbent T20I champions – their first-ever win against India in any format. On Saturday, the women's team recorded their maiden victory in the T20 World Cup – over West Indies. On Sunday, the men's team now has a chance to bite into a bigger slice of history with a series win over Shreyas Iyer's team.

After the loss in the opening fixture, India's newest T20I captain vowed to quickly move on. Eerily, India have been in this exact situation before. They lost their first T20I after being crowned champions in 2024, to Zimbabwe. Back then, they moved on emphatically – with a 100-run victory in the next fixture, followed by three more wins to claim a 4-1 series win. In Ireland, they don't have room for such redemption – at best, they can achieve parity before heading to England where they play five matches.

Lorcan Tucker's men will be out there with an immense sense of belief that they can deny India even that level of revival. For all of the discourse around the possibility of Vaibhav Sooryavanshi's big India debut, it was Ireland's debutant Jai Moondra who arrived, and did it in style. Ireland recovered better from batting setbacks, finished better and bowled more collectively as a unit to bring down a T20I behemoth. Tucker will egg his players on to push for a repeat.

When: Ireland vs India, 2nd T20I, Sunday, June 26, 2026, 1:30 PM local time / 6 PM IST

Where: Civil Service Cricket Club, Stormont, Belfast

What to expect: Once again, a bit of rain is expected but not enough to ruin play entirely. The pitch in the first game had something in it for the bowlers which made 182 a comfortably defendable total. Expect another such surface to get rolled out.

The visitors could consider one change to the team that lost the series opener, but not the one that most are anticipating to see. Prince Yadav for Prasidh Krishna, who went for 57 runs in four overs in the first T20I could be a move worth considering.

Probable XI: Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson, Ishan Kishan, Shreyas Iyer (c), Tilak Varma, Washington Sundar, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Harshit Rana, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna/Prince Yadav

Absolutely no reason for the home team to tinker with a winning combination.

Probable XI: Tim Tector, Ross Adair, Harry Tector, Lorcan Tucker (c & wk), Benjamin Calitz, Gareth Delany, George Dockrell, Liam McCarthy, Matthew Humphreys, Jai Moodra, Matthew Hollard

-This will be the first T20I series that India will fail to win since January 2024.
-Shreyas Iyer became the fourth India captain – after Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant and Shubman Gill – to lose his maiden T20I in charge.

"I think you can't take anything for granted. You can't just turn up and win matches. You have to work hard and see to it that you're in that moment." – Shreyas Iyer on his message to the team after the unexpected defeat.

"It was pretty special. But just credit to the lads. I think we scrapped through that game. We had some tough periods in it, but we stayed in it. And we were diligent, and we worked hard. And we were lucky to get the reward in the end." – Ireland captain Lorcan Tucker on his team's historic win.