Ireland’s Day out

Ireland’s Day out

  

02 March, 2011- Bangalore – This day will go in Irish history as their best cricketing day and all the players who were part of the squad will have a wonderful success story to tell their grandchildren in years to come...What a turnaround! What a match! What an explosive innings coming in a pressure match in a world cup against a established side, that too their arch rival!  Who scored the Fastest hundred scored in the history of world cup- ask anyone.. they might say sehwag, Gayle, Richards, Gilchrist, Jayasuriya but one Mr Kevin O’Brien stole the show and scored the fastest hundred in world cup history and 5^th fastest in the history of ODI cricket.

 

       England Scores 327

          England started the match on a positive note with a 91 run partnership between A strauss, the in form skipper and Kevin Pietersen, the best Batsman of their side. Kevin was more aggressive of the two scoring 59 of 50 balls with 7 4’s and 2 6’s showing his form and class.  However both fell in quick succession and England became 111/2 still plenty of talented batsmen to come and holding the upper hand in the match.

                       

     Bell and Trott Steadies the Ship

 Ian Bell, the much improved English player over the last season and Jonathan Trott, the find of the summer, steadied the ship with a mammoth 167 partnership with both of them scoring at run a ball and setting up the platform for the hitters to up the tempo in the final overs. Trott was unlucky to be dismissed for 92 when he played on  to an incoming delivery from Mooney. He truly deserved a hundred for the manner in which he took on the Irish bowlers. Bell departed soon for 81 and the scoreboard read 288/4.

Brilliant Death bowling by Irish and England Squanders:

   With plenty of batting to come with the likes of Collingwood, Prior, Bresnan, Yardy and Swanny, England were targeting something around 350 plus. But the clever and wicket to wicket bowling by Ireland, especially Mooney made sure England lost wicket at regular intervals and couldn’t accelerate to reach their target. Mooney scalped 4 and England ended with just 327, at least 30-40 short of what they should have got.

English Scorecard:

England: 327/8 (50.0 over’s)

Andrew Strauss b Dockrell 34 (37b 2x4 1x6)

Kevin Pieterson c O'Brien b Stirling 59 (50b 7x4 2x6)

Jonathan Trott b Mooney 92 (92b 9x4 0x6)

Ian Bell c Stirling b Mooney 81 (86b 6x4 1x6)

Paul Collingwood c O'Brien 16 (11b 0x4 1x6)

Matt Prior b Johnston 6 (5b 1x4 0x6)

Tim Bresan c Johnston b Mooney 4 (8b 0x4 0x6)

Michael Yardy b Johnston 3 (6b 0x4 0x6)

Graeme Swann (not out) 9 (5b 1x4 0x6)

Extras: 23 (b 1, lb 2, w 20, nb 0)

Ireland Reply  and a Disastrous start:

   No body would have expected Ireland to make a decent fight against such a stiff target, let alone aim for winning the game and they started on a poor note with their skipper Porterfield falling for a first ball duck and the score card reading 1/0. However Paul Stiring and Ed Joyce, who had played for England, made a decent partnership of 62. Just when things were looking better, Stirling got out and Ed Joyce and Neil O’Brien rotated the strike and gave some optimism to their fans.

                 

          Skipper goes for a Duck                   Stirling attacked during his brief stay

Triple Strike from Swanny, one of the best off-spinners of today

 Swanny is a class bowler and has the best record amongst all the spinners in the last 18 months and he proved why he is so highly rated by England. Bowling slow, flighting the ball and varying the pace he mesmerized the Irish middle order with his variations and scalped three wickets and from 2/62 the scorecard showed 111/5. Chasing 300 plus, any team would not back themselves to win the match unless they have a Gilchrist or Yusuf Pathan coming lower down the order. To an ordinary cricket follower, this match was all but over. But this was not to be...

Here comes O’Brien  and Blows the match away from England like a Hurricane

  To win a match or to think of winning from this position needs enormous amount of self belief in one’s ability and drive to do something special for the Nation. The Irish Boys never gave up and believed they still can win as they had Kevin O’Brien one of their best batsman at the crease along with Alex Cussak. I am not sure what made Kevin O’Brien to go wild and play one of the innings of the decade, but it must be certainly to prove their critics wrong and to deliver a killer blow to their arch rivals England.

  England had a decent bowling line up with the pace of Broad, Swing of Anderson and guiles of Bresnan and Swann can test even the best of the batting line ups in the world. But on a flat pitch, they were clueless of where to bowl to Kevin O’Brien who started assaulting the bowlers all over the park. All the bowlers were given the punishment except Swann, may be he was an obedient student : ) . Credit must not be taken away from Alex Cussak who supported O’Brien so well to put on a match winning 150 plus partnership that took the game closer to victory.

 O’Brien playing the innings of his life

 

  Its worth dedicating a paragraph for the brutal innings played by O’Brien that can be compared to similar innings played by cricketers such as Sir Vivian Richards, Sehwag, Gilly, Afridi, Jayasuriya and Gayle. All these players were from established nations and had enough cricketing exposure and infrastructure to get themselves in the best shape to play such a kind of innings. But an innings of 50 ball 100 coming from a Minnow’s batsman,  that too against a test bowling attack is praiseworthy and no  praise is high enough for this innings that is going to change the whole facet of Irish cricket .

         Just to mention about his innings, it consisted of 13 boundaries and 6 towering sixes that would have made the nation proud. The manner in which he played the slog sweeps to spinners to dismiss the ball in to the stands , the towering sixes to long on and mid wicket of the quicker bowlers ( one of those sixes hit the meter mark, the longest six of the tournament) was full of arrogance and completion domination and a statement to the opponents with the bat, “ Hey guys! Today is my day and whatever I do will succeed.. better luck next time”.

  Even though O’brien got run out, the momentum he got into scoring spread to his teammates and Mooney did the finishing act with few adventurous shots and Irish won the match with 5 balls to spare.....What a match!! What an innings!! WC 2011 has started to gain momentum and lets hope some more interesting matches to come...

Winning Moments

Go Irish goooooooooooooooooooooo!!

You are no more the minnows....

You are the Giant killers

Pakistan in the last world cup

And England this world cup

And who knows. more to come..

Let the Irish dance go on and cheer us with more of such wins!    ---- Kannan