Ireland v Sri Lanka

Lankan Tigers Take on Ireland

In the super eight match on Wednesday mighty Sri Lankan took on the surprise package of this cricket world cup Ireland. In the otherwise redundant match Sri Lanka played with their full strength. They brought back their rested bowlers of the last match like Murlitharan and Chaminda Vaas. Sri Lanka had already qualified for the semi finals and Ireland is out of contention thus the result of this match would have no bearing on the standing of either team in this tournament. However it was a good practice for Sri Lanka before they enter the bigger league.

Jayawardene won the toss

Sri Lankan skipper Mahela Jayawardene won the toss and elected to field first. This has become a common practice in this world cup citing the conditions of the early hours of the match. The conditions were in favor of seam bowling and Lankan think tank decided to give their bowlers a chance to have a go at the Irish batting line up. This was definitely an acid test for the Irish batting line up, which was highly inexperienced in the international cricket.

Openers put up for a while….

The Irish opening pair of JP Bray and WTS Portefield put up a valiant resistance till the 8th over of the match. Although they accumulated 28 runs but they had seen through the new ball. They made a cautious start and played the ball according to its merit. The partnership was broken by Mahroof in the 8th over of the match. JP Bray was to depart first after scoring 20 runs from 29 balls. The opening pair however could not provide much stability to the Irish innings.

Some stability restored

After the introduction of Farvez Mahroof and Muttiah Murlitharan the Irish batting line up just could not stand up. They fell like a pack of cards and had no clue as to how to tackle the demolition act led by the Lankan bowlers. After the fall of first wicket Ireland lost two more wickets in a row on the same score. From 28 runs for no loss they were reduced to 28 runs for 3 wickets. JP Bray was followed by AC Botha and EJG Morgan. Both of them had a golden duck against their name. After addition of another 18 runs the other opener William Portefield also gave up his valiant fight. He got out after scoring 17 runs from 51 balls. After his departure with the addition of just 3 runs Ireland lost another four wickets. They were rallying on 49 runs for the loss of 8 wickets.


Langford-Smith stood tall….

Although the tail did not wag as 3 batsmen went for a duck but the last man Langford-Smith put up a mighty effort to take past Ireland the fifty run mark. He scored 18 runs from 21 balls with 2 boundaries and one six. His effort took Ireland to a total score of 77 runs in 27.4 overs. Only 3 batsmen in the Irish batting line up could reach the double figure mark and five batsmen settled for a golden duck against their name.