Not many expected T20 world champions Team India to lose a match to Ireland, anywhere in the world. Yet, that became a reality when Ireland punished India for dropped catches, clueless bowling and timid batting with a 34-run win in the IND vs IRE 1st T20I. Now, Shreyas Iyer and Gautam Gambhir would want to avoid a historic clean sweep on Sunday in the 2nd T20I in Belfast. And India need to solve a few puzzles before that.
While bilateral T20Is hardly matter, and it is not a good yardstick to measure a team’s capabilities, those matches do expose some issues. Team India have been the best T20I side since 2024, losing just 8 out of 53 matches. And one of those losses exposed some lingering problems.
The Tilak Varma problem
First, it’s Tilak Varma, the newly-appointed vice-captain of India. In the first T20I, Tilak scored a sluggish 21-ball 19, not a knock you expect when the team is chasing 183. He came to the India vs Ireland T20I series with a string of good scores, even though they came in the 50-over format.
Tilak scored four half-centuries in five innings in the One-Day Tri-series against Sri Lanka A and Afghanistan A. Then, he smashed 136 in the TG20. But despite the good run of form, the first T20I exposed his struggles in the middle overs. His performance in the IPL 2026 was a hint of his problems.
In IPL 2026, where Tilak scored 359 runs in 14 matches, including a century, he managed a strike rate of just 116.3 in the middle overs. It was worse than Rishabh Pant’s, who had a poor IPL campaign. He goes into a defensive mode the moment there is a spinner.
In the IPL, he hits a boundary against a spinner every 12.4 balls, and that is an issue. Tilak Varma could not find a way to score runs against Ireland in the 1st T20I. He had 10 dot balls in his 21-ball stay.
India need him to find a way to score at the No.5 spot. Without his contribution in the middle-overs, India may not expect the explosive starts. If Tilak continues to falter in the middle overs, Sanju Samson may play defensively to save his wicket to contribute runs in the middle overs, not something India want.
Shreyas Iyer needs to score
Yes, he has played just one T20I in three years, and he is new to the job, but Shreyas Iyer holds the most crucial No.4 spot in the batting order. His predecessor was fired from the job and dropped from the squad because he failed to do exactly that: score runs.
Shreyas Iyer doesn’t have many problems, but he is not a prime Suryakumar Yadav either. At his peak, SKY could find a way to score in the middle overs, and that made him the most crucial cog in the team.
Iyer has to find a way. He may not be Mr 360, but there is no lack of talent. He gifted his wicket in the 1st T20I, and that cannot happen. The captaincy would take care of itself, but there cannot be a no-show from Shreyas Iyer, the batter, especially when two of the top-order batters fail. Iyer has it in him. He is coming back from IPL, where he scored 498 runs in 13 innings at 168.8 strike rate. He needs to replicate that form.
Define Washington Sundar’s role
Neither the selectors, nor the team management, nor even the captain is sure of Washington Sundar’s role. He becomes a No.3 batter in a Test match, and then becomes a utility (bits and pieces) player in some. There is no clear role for Washington Sundar.
In the IND vs IRE 1st T20I, Shreyas Iyer called him up to bowl the 16th over, just an over after Harshit Rana broke a threatening stand. But Sundar ended up conceding 19 runs, ruining India’s momentum. That was followed by a 27-run over from Prasidh Krishna.
With the bat, Sundar batted at No.6, scoring 9 runs off 12 balls, failing to make any impact. In the last few games, he has been used at No.8, No.7, No.6 and even No.5. With the ball, it gets weirder. In 9 matches in 2025, Sundar has bowled the full quota of overs just twice. In two matches, he did not even bowl. And then in the rest, he bowled two overs at max.
If he is the spin all-rounder India are looking at, shouldn’t the team management define his role? If not, why not play a specialist in his position? His batting hasn’t been on fire in the T20Is, and nor has he been utilised often. His highest score for India in T20Is since 2025 is 49. But then, he has got away with low scores of 6, 12, 11 and 9. If not the bowling, Washington Sundar needs to find his batting form of IPL 2026, where he scored 377 runs at a 150.19 strike rate at No.5.
“The management has backed Washington Sundar a lot. His place seems set in the playing XI, but I feel his role is not there. He is always there on the field, but sometimes he gets just one over. Sometimes he doesn’t get that over. In batting, Sundar is being used as a finisher, but he’s not one. He should be used as a floater. It seems like a wrong role for him,” former India offie R Ashwin also questioned Sundar’s role on his YouTube channel ‘Ash Ki Baat’.
The Prasidh Krishna dilemma
With no Hardik Pandya or Nitish Reddy to bank on, India went with Prasidh Krishna as the third seamer option against Ireland in the 1st T20I. But Prasidh disappointed once again. His lack of control and error-prone bowling cost India 57 runs.
But it’s not a one-off. Prasidh was dropped from the T20I setup after a terrible series against Australia back in 2023. He leaked runs at a 13.25 economy rate in exchange for 4 wickets in 3 matches. In 6 T20Is so far, Prasidh’s economy rate is at 11.54 to show just 8 wickets.
But another good IPL 2026 show and then a fifer in the ODI series against Afghanistan brought him back, with Jasprit Bumrah rested. However, Prasidh may not be a long-term solution. India cannot trust a bowler who does not trust his own skill set, a problem Prasidh has faced all his career.
Plugging the leaks in middle overs
Bowling in the middle overs continues to be a systemic issue. In the first T20I, Ireland managed to reach 182/9, largely because the Indian bowlers failed to dry up the runs during the middle phase of the innings. Ireland scored 101 of those runs in the middle-overs alone. What India need is defensive bowling in the middle overs, if not for taking wickets.
The reason India keep trusting Prasidh Krishna is the lack of options in the middle overs in seam-friendly conditions. Prasidh was the best middle-overs pacer in the IPL 2026 with 13 wickets at an economy rate of 9.48. The next Indian pacers on the list were Kartik Tyagi, Sakib Hussain and Nitish Kumar Reddy. While Tyagi and Hussain are far away from getting a call-up to India’s T20I setup, Reddy could be an answer only if he finds a way to have better control.
For the time being, even as Prasidh seems to be the only option, India could call up Ravi Bishnoi, who warmed the bench in the 1st T20I. Bishnoi is the only option India has left on the bench in Belfast.
“Initially, the bowlers were bowling venom. But in between, we lost the execution and let them hit us straight down the ground, where the boundaries are smaller. I thought 140 would have been a good score to chase, given the start we had with the ball,” India captain Shreyas Iyer acknowledged India’s mistake in the middle-overs
Cricket
From Tilak Varma to Prasidh Krishna and Washington Sundar, the puzzles India must solve
