AUSTRALIA: A clinical performance from the bowlers and a fifty from Aaron Finch helped Australia defeat Ireland comprehensively by 42 runs. In this match, after winning the toss, Ireland opted to bowl first.
Australian Innings
David Warner and Aaron Finch opened the innings for Australia, but Australia again lost David Warner early in the innings and his poor form in T20 World Cup 2022 continues.
Australia managed to score some boundaries, and at the end of the power-play, they were 38-1. Marsh (28) also lost his wicket in the 9th over, when he was hitting the ball quite nicely.
Maxwell and Finch needed to build a partnership from here as half of the overs were gone. Australia was 78-2 in 10 overs. After a decent partnership with skipper Aaron Finch, Maxwell (13) also got out and Ireland were gripping the game.
After the fall of Maxwell, Marcus Stoinis came into the crease and he had different plans. He was timing the ball very nicely and started scoring quickly. On the other hand, Finch, completed his patient half-century and AUS was 134-3 at the end of the 15th over.
AUS managed to score 57 runs in the last 5 overs. Stoinis scored 35 and Finch scored 63. With the help of some finishing touches from Tim David and Matthew Wade, AUS ended up with a final score of 179-5.
For Ireland, Barry McCarthy took 3 wickets and Joshua Little took 2 wickets.
Ireland Innings
Paul Stirling and Andy Balbirnie opened the innings for Ireland and soon both the openers were removed by Maxwell and Cummins respectively. Maxwell also got rid of Tector in the same over and Ireland was struggling at 24-3.
In the very next over, Starc’s paced-up-in-swinging deliveries got through two Irish batsmen and this left IRE 25-5. It was almost Australia’s game from here.
In the final over of the power-play, Starc conceded 3 boundaries and that helped IRE to reach 50 in 6.1 overs.
At the end of the 10th over, IRE lost another wicket and were 73-6 and needed 107 more runs from the last 10 overs.
IRE kept losing wickets because of the pressure of the score and soon, by the end of the 15th over, IRE was 106-8 with Tucker being the only batsman in the crease.
Tucker (playing on a half-century) was fighting alone and was still trying to hold on to the chase. IRE needed 44 runs in the last 3 overs with Tucker on the crease and only 2 wickets in hand.
IRE could not even make it to the final over and were all out for 137. As a result, Australia won by a good margin of 42 runs.
For Australia, Glenn Maxwell, Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins, and Adam Zampa took 2 wickets each, while Marcus Stoinis took 1 wicket.
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