Former Indian wicket-keeper bat Dinesh Karthik has picked the turning point in India’s 34-run loss against Ireland at Belfast on Friday. Karthik reckons the 17th over, which was bowled by Prasidh Krishna, was the game-changer in the match.

Krishna was taken for 27 runs in his final over of the innings, which included three sixes and two fours. Overall, Krishna returned with expensive figures of 0-57 in his quota of four overs and thus conceded his runs at 14.20.

Thus, Ireland was able to post a par score of 182 runs on the board but India was bundled out for 148.

Dinesh Karthik said on Cricbuzz, “Gareth Delany taking down Prasidh Krishna in the 17th over was the turning point. It put a lot of pressure on India and imagine Axar Patel bowled the 18th and 20th overs. It tells you Shreyas Iyer has front-loaded his pacers, hoping they would give wickets, but that didn’t happen. Because of that, the Indian bowling was met with at the backend.”

Meanwhile, barring Abhishek Sharma, who scored 49 runs off 20 balls, none of the other Indian batters could get going in the run chase. Karthik highlighted that India’s middle order faltered against Ireland, which led to their downfall.

“Abhishek Sharma was the only one who got going. India’s middle-order completely faltered and put a lot of pressure on those that batted after. Ireland didn’t even have many of their core players, which adds more context to this historic win,” said Karthik (via the aforementioned source).

“Despite Abhishek’s brilliant start, because of the scoreboard pressure, there were lot of arieal shots through the middle. But none of them connected and in a ground like Belfast, which is awkwardly-shaped, it didn’t help India. The cluster of wickets in the middle meant the pressure was always on India. Ireland outbatted, outbowled and definitely outfielded India.”

The second T20I between India and Ireland will be played at Belfast on Sunday.