![\"Ireland](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/a45d7f85-c2b8-4353-a805-5a08c0389133.jpg\")
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Ireland captain Paul Stirling after Ireland’s T20 defeat to England at Malahide Cricket Ground. Photo: Seb Daly\/Sportsfile<\/p>\n
Gareth Delany spared Ireland\u2019s blushes with a hard-hitting 48 not out at Malahide today but his late-innings flourish wasn\u2019t nearly enough to prevent England recording a six-wicket victory and a 2-0 T20 series win.<\/p>\n
Delany\u2019s highest score against a Test-playing nation took the Boys in Green to a just-about respectable 154-8, but after a break for rain Jordan Cox smashed 55, and Tom Banton 37 not out, to see England home with 17 balls to spare.<\/p>\n
Put into bat, Ross Adair gave Ireland a good start with a rapid 33 from 23 balls, including a brutal straight six, before he became the first of three top order batters caught in the deep in the space of two-and-a-half overs.<\/p>\n
Harry Tector and debutant Ben Calitz briefly steadied the ship by adding 32 for the fifth wicket before another clatter of wickets left Ireland struggling on 102-7 after 15.<\/p>\n
Tector hit one massive six but couldn\u2019t find his fluency of the first game and frustration at being tied down led to a rash reverse sweep on 28 that was easily caught on the ring while the left-handed Calitz showed promise in making 22.<\/p>\n
Delany gave his side something to bowl at as he took a fancy to Sonny Baker, hitting the young paceman for two of his three sixes off consecutive deliveries, and his unbeaten 48 from 29 balls also contained four fours.<\/p>\n
While England were strong favourites at halfway, a stunning one-handed catch at short extra by Curtis Campher removed Jos Buttler for a second-ball duck and another fine diving effort in the deep by Delany had the visitors wobbling on 33-2.<\/p>\n
The capacity crowd\u2019s faint hopes of seeing an upset were quickly put to bed by Cox, though, who lifted four sixes and as many fours in his 35-ball innings.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you play England you don\u2019t know exactly what a winning score is but we were probably 15 short today,\u201d skipper Paul Stirling said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m proud of the lads. There were a lot of good things in both games.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland captain Paul Stirling after Ireland’s T20 defeat to England at Malahide Cricket Ground. Photo: Seb Daly\/Sportsfile Gareth…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35602,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[27606,61,60,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-35601","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-david-townsend","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}