England's hopes of establishing a commanding position in Group 1 of the T20 World Cup suffer a hammer blow as they are defeated by Ireland in a rain-affected match in Melbourne.
On the back of New Zealand thrashing Australia at the weekend, there was the assumption that England could effectively eliminate the tournament hosts with victory over the Baggy Greens later this week.
However, the two rivals nations are now level on points ahead of that potentially-pivotal encounter, a result of Australia beating Sri Lanka on Tuesday and Ireland edging out England by five runs less than 24 hours later.
Ireland, one of the minnows of the competition, were helped out by a late deluge of rain at the MCG with England marginally short of the total that they needed to be at via the Duckworth-Lewis method.
Nevertheless, few people could deny that the underdogs deserved their success, helped by setting England a target of 158 despite being bowled out four balls short of their allotted overs.
Captain Andy Balbirnie (62) and Lorcan Tucker (34) put on a second-wicket partnership of 82 from 57 balls, setting the platform for Curtis Campher (18) and Gareth Delany (12) to attack further down the order.
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England were staring down the barrel of allowing Ireland to score a bigger total, only for the final three wickets to fall in nine balls, but it was Liam Livingstone (3-17) and Mark Wood (3-34) who had earlier posted the best figures.
The reply begun with England aware of the threat of rain, and it perhaps contributed to Jos Buttler falling to a second-ball duck and Alex Hales being dismissed for just seven, both wickets being taken by Josh Little.
Ben Stokes fell for just six, leaving it up to Dawid Malan (35) and Harry Brook (18) to keep England competitive, yet still considerably behind the required rate in the event of rain.
Moeen Ali helped move England closer to their desired total in the short term, contributing 24 off 12 deliveries, but once the heavens had opened and the covers had been brought on, there was soon the realisation that the game would not be resuming before the cut-off point.
As Ireland celebrate a second major tournament win over England after their success at the 50-over World Cup in 2011, England are left to prepare for what now feels like a must-win game against Australia in 48 hours time.
