The Proteas have taken the early upper hand with an emphatic victory in the first T20I against Ireland, thanks to a brilliant show from both the spinners: George Linde and Tabraiz Shamsi.

After posting 165/7, which appeared to be a middling total, it felt like the bowlers would have their work cut out to defend this total. Paul Stirling hit the first ball for six, but Linde breached his attempted slog-sweep on the very next ball, knocking his middle stump.

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Ireland captain Andrew Balbirnie got off to a sprightly start, hitting two boundaries off Rabada, but the first two overs of Lungi Ngidi brought about the wickets of George Dockrell and the skipper. Both ended up edging to the keeper, and that pushed the hosts deeper into a quandary.

At four down, they had lost the majority of their batting resources, and Shamsi’s introduction continued to deal the damage. The spin from both ends maintained a tight stranglehold on the scoring rate, and it never really looked like Harry Tector and Simi Singh were reading the turn very well. The spinners shared six wickets between them, kicking off a rapid middle-order free fall.

The final-wicket stand continued until the final over – Barry McCarthy and Josh Little added 44 runs between them, and remained unbroken at the end of the innings. This partnership frustrated the South Africans, despite them bowling clinically for most of the innings. More importantly, it’s a well-earned victory for the visitors, and the next aim will be to strongly close out the series.

Ireland 132/9 (Tector 36, McCarthy 30* – Shamsi 4-0-27-4, Ngidi 4-0-18-2)