Indian cricket witnessed one of its darkest chapters on Sunday as the men’s team was whitewashed by Ireland in a two-match T20I series. The three-time T20 World Champions, led by Shreyas Iyer, were completely outplayed by the Irish in Belfast. In the first T20I on Friday, India fell 34 runs short while chasing a target of 183. In the second match, the visitors suffered a narrow one-run defeat in the chase of 155. In both games, India’s batting lineup experienced a complete collapse.
As Iyer and his team look to recover from this setback ahead of the T20I series against England, former India all-rounder Ravichandran Ashwin weighed in on the reasons behind the batting failures against Ireland.
It is worth noting that big-hitting Indian batters such as Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson, and Ishan Kishan struggled throughout the series. While Abhishek impressed with a quickfire 49 off 20 balls in the first game, he was dismissed for a golden duck in the second T20I.
Ashwin pointed out that the IPL is played on batting-friendly pitches, leading many Indian players to adapt accordingly. As a result, they are finding it difficult to adjust to overseas conditions, where pitches tend to offer more assistance to bowlers.
“The kind of 24-carat batting pitches we see in the IPL weren’t available here, and I really enjoyed the quality of cricket that was played,” Ashwin said on his YouTube channel.
“Most of this Indian batting line-up has come straight from the IPL. Their real value at the international level will be tested only when they play on wickets that are not true batting surfaces. The batting line-up has undoubtedly improved because of the IPL, but when they come across pitches offering movement and assistance to bowlers, they are going to face difficulties,” he added.
Ashwin on India’s defeat against Ireland.
– Indian players are accustomed to playing on the ’24-carat’ flat wickets of the IPL, whenever they face tough conditions at the international level, they will struggle significantly. pic.twitter.com/gtGalvmmqs
— Indian Cricket 🏏 (@navshar54008403) June 28, 2026
Even Iyer acknowledged that India’s bowlers executed their plans well, but noted that the batters failed to read the pitch conditions and capitalise on scoring opportunities, particularly by not converting singles into twos, which allowed Ireland to outplay them at crucial moments.
“It’s still definitely not a great series, honestly speaking, but kudos to them for the way they played. Ireland team, I think they showed professionalism and definitely had a tremendous idea about how the wicket was going to play and the field work there was phenomenal. So a comprehensive win to them and congratulations,” Iyer said after the match.
“Absolutely. I feel the bowlers, they were phenomenal in terms of their execution today. But we fell a bit short in our batting. We were, we fell a bit short in terms of analysing how the wicket is going to play and also converting singles into twos. I think they definitely outplayed us in that department,” he added.