Ireland ends Super50 series with Windward Island win
Credit: Extratime Team (ETPhotos)
A 64 run victory over defending champions Windward Islands gave Ireland a great boost in their final game of their Nagico Super50 in Port of Spain. Defeats to Jamaica and Guyana in their first two games meant Ireland were just playing for pride but they bounced back well on a slow track to set them up nicely for their three game series against the West Indies.
Similar to Wednesday, William Porterfield won the toss and had no hesitation with batting first despite the previous two batting displays which led to feeble efforts. It was a poor surface for batting and it showed as wickets fell at regular intervals with not one partnership reaching the half century mark but with two falling just short at 48.
Niall O’Brien, arguably his sides’ most important batsman, scored the bulk of those runs with a composed 44 off 63 balls, which contained only 3 boundaries. Stuart Thompson always played well for 32 which set Ireland up to reach 179 whilst once again, not batting out their 50 overs and it looked as though this wouldn’t be enough.
However, the bowlers enjoyed this pitch much more than the batsman. This was largely in part to George Dockrell, who took the man of the match award. The young left arm spinner, who played his 100th game against for Ireland against Jamaica, took 3/14 off his seven overs. He took perhaps the most important wicket of the game when Andre Fletcher attempt to cut him but instead he cut it straight to Niall O’Brien to point.
This signalled a collapse for the Windward Islands who proceeded to lose wickets at an alarming rate as Ireland bowled them out to for the 114 inside of 35 overs to give Coach Phil Simmonds a victory in his hometown as he celebrated his 200th game in charge of Ireland.
Next up for Ireland is a three game ODI series against the West Indies at Sabina Park in Jamaica. Ireland will have fond memories of that ground, as it is where they burst onto the international scene when they defeated Pakistan in the 2007 World Cup. They will be hoping for similar scenes this time around, to improve on what has been a pretty uninspiring tour so far.
