Ireland Score Famous First Victory Over South Africa – Sport for Business

The Irish Men’s Cricket team have secured a famous victory beating South Africa in a T20 International match in Abu Dhabi and drawing the series.

This is the first ever victory for the Irish team over South Africa in this shortest version of the game, having lost each of the six previous matches.

This series as well as a three match One Day International series starting on Wednesday are being played in Abu Dhabi despite originally being fixed as
home series for Ireland. A combination of weather risk and costs forced Cricket Ireland to switch to Abu Dhabi but that now looks like exactly the right decision in terms of confidence and world status for the team.

Ireland is currently ranked 11th in the world in the ICC’s T20 Rankings, with South Africa in sixth, one spot ahead of Pakistan.

This is the format in which Ireland will, together with England and Wales, host the 2030 Cricket World Cup, to take place at the new Cricket Ireland National Stadium on the Sport Ireland Campus.

These kind of wins against the best teams in the world make a difference in terms of reputation and standing and this is one for the record books.

The stars of the show were brothers Ross and Mark Adair. Ross became Ireland’s third ever batsman to score 100 runs in a T20 match, after Kevin O’Brien and his partner at the crease last night Paul Sterling.

His Brother Mark then stepped up to take four wickets for 31 runs as Ireland emerged the winners by ten runs.

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