PORT- of- Spain, Trinidad – Ireland turned around a poor batting innings to defeat the Windward Islands by 64 runs in both teams’ final match of the NAGICO Super50 tournament here last night.
Chasing 180 runs to win, the Windward Islands were bowled out for just 115 in 35 overs. Their chase never got going. They were reduced early on to 39/3. They never recovered.Tyrone Theophile resisted with 27, but that wasn’t near enough to what was required. His knock came off 47 balls. Andre Fletcher was the second highest scorer with 19 runs.
George Dockrell took 3-14 while Andrew Poynter came into the attack late to wrap up the Windwards’ innings, finishing with 2-11. Ireland suffered a similar innings when they won the toss and elected to bat first.
Johnson took 3-25 while his captain, Liam Sebastien grabbed 2-36 as the Windwards put on an impressive display of bowling in their final match of the NAGICO Super50 tournament.
Only Niall O’Brien battled back for the far visitors scoring 44 runs from 63 balls. He hit two fours and one six. Stuart Thompson also tried to resist but he could only get to 32 runs from 42 balls.
Their efforts were enough in the end as the Irish won by 64 runs.
Both the Windward Islands and Ireland were playing for pride having already been knocked out of the tournament. Both, however, will want to finish their NAGICO Super50 campaign on a high.
Ireland won the toss and elected to bat first. Both teams made changes to the Starting XIs that played in the first two matches. Alex Cusack and Tim Murtagh were dropped as Craig Young and Paul Stirling came in.
The Windwards made all three changes with the struggling Devon Smith, Garey Mathurin and Kenroy Peters being replaced in the starting line-up. Alston Bobb, Dalton Polius and Craig Emmanuel all got chance to start.
Both teams lost their first two matches against Guyana and Jamaica and though they have played patches of good cricket, have struggled to get the results.
Today, Guyana and Jamica face each other at the Queen’s Park Oval from 2pm Local Time (1pm Jamaica Time)