AUSTRALIA: Paul Stirling and Lorcan Tucker led Ireland to a dominating victory over West Indies by 9 wickets. Ireland became the third team to progress into the group stages of the T20 World Cup.
After the Ireland bowlers restricted West Indies to 146/5 in 20 overs, opener Paul Stirling and wicketkeeper-batsman Lorcan Tucker stitched together an unbeaten 77-run partnership for the second wicket.
West Indies Innings
Skipper Nicholas Pooran won the toss and elected to bat first on a pitch that seemed to have something in it for the spinners. The West Indies’ top order failed to fire as a unit.
Kyle Mayers (1 off 5 balls) was dismissed cheaply by medium pacer Barry McCarthy (33/1) in the 3rd over for a team score of 10. Johnson Charles (24 off 18 balls) got a decent start but threw away his wicket as off-spinner Simi Singh (11) got the batsman to hit one straight to the hands of Curtis Campher at backward point.
Evin Lewis’ wretched run of form continued in the crucial game for the West Indies. Lewis scratched around to score 13 runs off 18 balls before becoming Gareth Delany’s (16/3) first victim of the day.
Brandon King’s unbeaten 62 from 48 balls, which included six hits to the fence and one over it, kept the game alive and helped West Indies post a competitive total.
Nicholas Pooran (13 off 11 balls) and Rovman Powell (6 off 8 balls) fell to the guile of Gareth Delany as the leggie gave away only 16 runs in his 4 overs while claiming 3 wickets.
Ireland Innings
The Ireland openers came out to the middle with only one goal in mind and that was to lead their team to victory. They did just that in a thunderous display of aggressive batting.
Paul Stirling (66 off 48 balls) and Andrew Balbirnie (37 off 23 balls) went after the West Indies bowling from the very start as the opening duo put together 73 runs in just 7.3 overs.
Andrew was the only Irish wicket to fall as Lorcan Tucker (45 off 35 balls) joined forces with Stirling to bring the team home. Stirling hit six boundaries and two huge sixes, while Balbirnie helped himself to three boundaries and three maximums.
Lorcan Tucker chipped in with a couple of boundaries and two sixes, one of which was a beautiful stroke over long-on off the bowling of Obed McCoy.
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