Ireland women look to find form in ‘big one’ against Pakistan

KIM GARTH is looking for a big improvement from Ireland against Pakistan this evening as the Girls in Green target the Group B match that gives them their best chance of causing an upset at the World T20 finals in Guyana.

Pembroke all-rounder Garth, winning her 100th cap, was the star performer for Ireland as they were brushed aside by Australia in their opening match on Sunday night, losing by nine wickets as the tournament favourites romped to victory with 10.5 overs to spare.

“It was a tough day at the office for us and disappointing because we feel like we can cause a few upsets and we still do,” said Garth, who top-scored with 24 in the Ireland total of 93-6. “We’ll just have to park that result and move on.

Targeting

“The Pakistan game is absolutely huge. Not that we’re not gearing up for every game, but it’s the one we’re really targeting. Hopefully if we can turn them over, we might be able to automatically qualify for the next tournament.

“We had a convincing win against Sri Lanka in a warm-up game and we were really happy with the type of cricket that we played. It was kind of the opposite of what we did against Australia.

“Sri Lanka and Pakistan are similar enough sides in that they’re very spin-heavy with their bowling and I think their batting is actually quite similar as well. So, yeah, look we’ll take our confidence from that. We’re kind of marking this one as the big one.”

Ireland’s final two group matches are against India and New Zealand on Thursday and Saturday.