Irish team took a fall in the second qualifier match against Sri Lanka in T20 World Cup Group A today. The Green army chased a score of 172 made by Lanka but became all out for 101 at Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Dubai. Sri Lanka enjoys a win of 70 runs.
Score:
Sri Lanka- 171-7 (20 overs)
Ireland- 101 all out (18.3 overs)
With this winning Sri Lanka has almost secured a place in Super 12s with four points. Now Ireland has to wait for the result of their match against Namibia on Friday and also the result of Sri Lanka- Netherlands match result is crucial for Irish team’s Super 12s entry.
If Ireland wins against Namibia, and Sri Lanka wins against Netherlands, Ireland can march to the next round with four points as the runners up from Group A. But if both match results are opposite, Ireland’s entry to Super 12s will become complicated and will be based on net run rate.
In today’s match at Sheikh Zayed Stadium, Ireland got toss and Captain Andrew Balbirnie’s decision was to choose bowling. The bowlers were doing well with economy and Sri Lanka lost 3 wickets within a score 8 of runs. Though no wickets fell for a long time since then, Irish bowlers showed better performance for a few more overs. But the Lankan batters started scoring well later which ended with a potentially higher score of 171.
In the chase, though Ireland lost wickets in the beginning Balbirnie (41 in 39 balls) and Curtis Campher (24 in 28 balls) tried hard to lead the team but after the dismissal of both of them, Lankan bowlers consistently took the remaining wickets within the next few overs. Ireland was at 84-4 at the 13th over but on the 19th over the last 6 wickets fell down. Nine Irish batters could not even score double numbers.
On the other side Sri Lankan batters too did not do well except Pathum Nissanka (61 from 47 balls), Wainindu Hasaranga (71 from 47 balls) and Captain Dasun Shanaka (21 not out from 11 balls). Five other batters scored less than 10 runs.