Ireland face Reality

Ireland finished their World Cup campaign on a sad note. When they entered World Cup 2007, many would have expected them to be mere pushovers, but Ireland shocked the world by knocking Pakistan out of the World Cup and then entering the Quarters to register a solitary, but emphatic, win over Bangladesh. But yesterday they were thrashed by Srilanka, who had valuable match practice.

There is nothing great to write about the match. Ireland batted first and once they lost their opener Bray(20 runs), wickets started tumbling like 9 pins. Maharoof was the chief wrecker as he demolished the top order and dismissed Bray(20), Porterfield(17), Botha(0), and Morgan(0) to finish with 4/25 off his 10 overs. To add to 4 wickets, he inflicted a brilliant run out of Trent Johnson. Ireland were reeling at 48/6, and things got worser as Murali came into the attack.

If the first half belonged to Maharoof, the second one was hogged by Murali, who spun a web around the Irish batsman. He dismissed Neil “o” Brien and Carroll in his first over and then took the wickets of Kevin “o” Brien and Mccallan to end up with 4/19 off his 5 overs. Vaas wrapped up the Irish innings when he dismissed Langford Smith for 18. Ireland scored just a meagre 77 and a thrashing was on the cards.

Srilanka should have won this match by 10 wickets, but the wickets of Tharanga(0) and Sangakkara(10) proved to be a blip on the Radar as the Srilankan batsman stuck to their guns and chased the target easily. Jayasuriya(24 off 20 balls, a six and 3 fours), and captain Jayawardane(39 off 27 balls, a six and 6 fours) finished off the match in 10 overs. Thus Srilanka thrashed yet another minnow.


Note for the statisticians: During the last three World Cup matches(Aus vs SL, SA vs ENG, and SL vs IRE), the winning runs have been hit by the respective captains. Ponting finished off the match against Srilanka with a Six; Smith hit a Four against England; and Jayawardane hit a four against Ireland to seal off an 8 wicket victory. Interestingly this World Cup has been good for the captains mainly Fleming, Ponting, Smith, and Jayawardane. Even Ireland's captain, Trent Johnson, has had his moments(he hit a six to register a thrilling 3 wicket win over Pakistan, took the wicket of Adam Gilchrist,and scored 30 runs in the match against Bangladesh).