Ireland’s hopes hang in balance after Zimbabwe collapse
THE Ireland squad were given the day off yesterday ahead of their most important game of the year. Following their horror batting collapse against Zimbabwe on Friday, Ireland must beat Scotland at the Harare Sports Club today to have any chance of reaching next year’s World Cup finals.
Even then, if other results go against them this week, it may still not be enough to beat Afghanistan on Friday in the final Super Six game to reach the final of the qualifying tournament and take their place at England 2019. But Ireland captain William Porterfield believes the short gap between the games could work in their favour today.
‘We’ve played a lot of congested fixtures on tour before,’ he said. ‘Only last weekend we lost against Windies and put in a good performance against UAE two days later.
‘We have to do the exact same thing here. It doesn’t give lads too long to mull over the result and we now know Sunday’s is a must-win.
‘Things still mightn’t go our way but we have to put ourselves in the position or else next week could be a long week.
‘So we have to leave everything here today and be ready to go Sunday, pick up two points and see what happens during the week.’
Porterfield still couldn’t explain where that batting performance came from – bowled out for 104 inside 35 overs – but he is backing the squad to bounce back.
‘We have faced very good spin attacks on spinning pitches and come out on top so it’s not an issue for us, we were more than capable of knocking off 212 and moving onto the next game,’ he added.
‘We’ve played Scotland a lot over the winter and won them all, including a close game in the warm-ups and got over the line.’
There can be no mistake today, or the repercussions will last four years.
Elsewhere, Bangladesh captain Shakib Al Hasan and Nurul Hasan have been fined 25 per cent of their match fees and handed one demerit point each for code of conduct breaches during an illtempered Twenty20 international with Sri Lanka.