Skipper Stirling makes Irish history in fine style
ON the day he became Ireland’s leading run-scorer in Twenty20 cricket, Paul Stirling won his first competitive match as the side’s captain.
It was by no means the perfect performance, but after no wins in their last five T20 internationals and only one in the previous 12, the result was all that mattered in their opening game of the Quadrangular tournament in Al Amarat.
Stirling was named man of the match after scoring 71 against hosts Oman, and after bringing up his 14th half century in his 86th match, he overtook William Porterfield’s tally of 2,039 runs in the shortest format of the game.
Thanks to their inspirational skipper, Ireland were in a commanding position after 14 overs on 122-1, but Stirling’s dismissal, five balls after he lost Andrew Balbirne, left them limping to the finish line, only 37 runs coming in the last six overs.
At 70-2 in the ninth over, Oman were on course to repeat their victory in the last meeting between the teams at the World Twenty20 in 2016, but Simi Singh took three wickets in the next over and suddenly it was 76-6.
But, after so long without a victory, even from that position it was never going to be straightforward for Ireland and, sure enough, first Mohammad Nadeem and then Fayyaz Butt got after the experienced Boyd Rankin and Peter Chase to reduce the target to 37 from three overs, almost exactly the same scenario as in the warm-up game on Sunday when the Irish lost to an Oman Development XI.
Crucially, though, this time the last pair was at the wicket and, to their credit, Rankin, Chase and the impressive Josh Little conceded only one boundary and 21 runs in those last 18 balls and, finally, Ireland’s Call could be sung in the dressing room after a T20 international.
Stirling’s first task of the day was to present an Ireland cap to Shane Getkate — the first debutant since Singh in May 2017, 32 matches ago. The Instonians all-rounder is Ireland’s 700th cap and, batting at No.6, he got off the mark first ball and hit his first boundary off his seventh before he was run out in the last over.
Cleverly introduced into the bowling attack by Stirling after Singh’s game-changing over with two new batsmen at the wicket, he conceded just seven runs in his first two overs and is a certain starter again tomorrow when they meet Scotland, who lost yesterday’s opening game to Netherlands by seven wickets.
As expected, Stuart Thompson and Andy McBrine were left out of yesterday’s line-up, although Harry Tector has been forced to wait for his debut with Lorcan Tucker selected to bat at second wicket down. He proved the selectors right with three boundaries in his unbeaten 22 as Ireland threatened to lose their way completely
Total (5 wkts, 20 overs)
in those last six overs.
Kevin O’Brien, frustratingly, was again caught on the boundary in only the sixth over but Stirling took advantage of two dropped catches — there were six in the innings — to strike 11 fours
and a six before he was caught at long-on.
In the end, he had done enough — just.
Scores: Scotland 153-7 (C MacLeod 53, G Munsey 32) Netherlands 154-3 (19.5 overs, T Visee 71). Netherlands won by 7 wickets.