England’s air of invincibility was washed away on a damp and dramatic afternoon in Melbourne. A combination of Ireland’s excellence and an ill-timed downpour turned one of the tournament favourites from Twenty20 benchmarks to no-marks.
Ireland won by five runs on the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern method after rain fell 14.3 overs into England’s innings. Moeen Ali had scored 12 runs from the previous three balls and had the weather held for even another two minutes this could well have been their game. “I’ve seen a lot of rain in my time playing cricket and I’ve never been happier to see that rain come down,” said Andrew Balbirnie, the Ireland captain.
