India slam win over Ireland

Defending champion and Pool A ace India slammed a big eight-wicket win over Ireland in the World Cup match at Adelaide today riding on the century of Shikhar Dhawan.

Winning the toss and choosing to bat first, Ireland commenced their innings composed with an 87-run opening partnership between William Porterfield, 67, and Paul Stirling, 42.

Two more rooting partnerships in the middle between with top scorer Nial O'Brien, 75, at the helm gave Ireland the solid foundation to eye a score around or perhaps beyond 290.

But, right after 200 was up, wickets began to tumble and Ireland lost their way completely to Indian bowlers – doom spelled from the batting powerplay overs.

Mohammad Shami ended with three wickets, Ravichandran Ashwin with two and Suresh Raina, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohit Sharma and Umesh Yadav claiming one each.

Coming down to chase, openers Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan gave the best yet start for India in World Cup history and built a solid foundation for the chasedown.

Dhawan ended at 100 and Rohit Sharma at 64 before Virat Kohli, 44, and Ajinkya Rahane, 33, guided India home to a comfortable, convincing and dominant victory over Ireland.

IRELAND

WTS Porterfield (Capt), PR Stirling, EC Joyce, NJ O'Brien, A Balbirnie, GC Wilson (wk), KJ O'Brien, JF Mooney, SR Thompson, AR Cusack and GH Dockrell

INDIA

RG Sharma, S Dhawan, V Kohli, AM Rahane, SK Raina, MS Dhoni (Capt & wk), RA Jadeja, R Ashwin, Mohammed Shami, MM Sharma and UT Yadav