Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Irish make it to World Cup finals
IRELAND have qualified for next year’s ICC T20 World Cup finals in Australia.
Graham Ford’s side moved top of Group B on Saturday following a comprehensive victory over Nigeria, but had to wait for the result of yesterday’s encounter between challengers Oman and Jersey.
Oman were expected to secure the necessary points to gain automatic qualification but were shocked by the Channel Island side, losing by 14 runs at the Abu Dhabi qualifying tournament.
UAE only beat Canada by 14 runs, meaning Ireland emerged with a superior run rate to both Oman and the UAE and qualified despite losing two of their six games in the group stages.
They will face the winners of the Netherlands v UAE next in the qualifier last four, with all four semifinalists guaranteed World Cup places.
Meanwhile, Scotland were left waiting to discover their play-off opponents after suffering a third defeat in the T20 World Cup qualifiers.
The Scots lost by four wickets against Holland in their sixth and final group game to finish fourth in Group A.
Matthew Cross was by far their best performer with the bat, hitting 52 from 44 balls. Opener George Munsey was bowled out for seven and Calum Macleod only managed one run before being bowled lbw.
Ryan Ten Doeschate hit an unbeaten half-century to take the Dutch home with three overs to spare.
However, the Dutch could not achieve the run-rate required to beat Papua New Guinea to automatic qualification.