At the Gabba in Brisbane on Monday, Australia returned to form with a 42-run victory over Ireland defeats in the Twenty20 World Cup defence.
With Ireland all out for 137 in the 19th over, Australia tied New Zealand at the top of Group 1 on five points, with a game remaining.
Despite being two points behind Australia, England has a superior net run rate, which could be crucial in a tight group.
Ireland defeats to reach in semi-finals
While Ireland had outside chances of reaching the semi-finals before the match, Mitchell Starc’s pace and inswing and the 180-run target the team had set blew them away.
Despite Lorcan Tucker’s unbeaten 71, they slumped to 25-5 and handed the World Cup hosts a comfortable victory.
According to captain Aaron Finch, who won the man of the match award for his 63 runs, scoring was a challenge.
As far as the wicket was concerned, it wasn’t the easiest, as it was a lot slower than what Finch had anticipated. As soon as the innings got underway, they changed their pace really well and bowled a lot of cutters.
There was a real struggle to get a rhythm and as a team we did well to get 179 points.”
Earlier, Finch stormed back into form with a 44-ball knock consisting of five fours and three sixes, answering critics who called for him to be drop.
There is no evidence that Finch influenced by all the chatter that was going on around him. Honestly, I do not feel like I am under any pressure at all when it comes to this project. To put it simply, I don’t feel any pressure at all,” said Finch.
“ I am extremely grateful for the help that I have received from the change room and support staff. T20 is a high risk game, and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.”
Australia lost three wickets to tight Irish bowling on his debut, but he remained patient, playing a key anchor role.
A progress-making Ireland
After Marcus Stoinis’ 35 off 25 balls set up the Irish attack to falter, Finch profited from his circumspect approach.
With the second ball of the second over, Ireland took a big blow when captain Andy Balbirnie bowled for six by Pat Cummins.
Following him almost immediately was the dangerous Stirling, who was caught by Cummins for 11 off Glenn Maxwell’s spin.
When Ireland were on 24 from Maxwell, Harry Tector was caught at square leg instead of getting out at third slip by Starc and the game was already over when Starc clean bowled Curtis Campher for a duck with one ball to go.
The fast bowler struck again with another beautiful inswinger to take out George Dockrell, leaving Ireland reeling at 25-5.
Despite Tucker and Delany leading a slight recovery, Delany was unable to get Stoinis until Delany tried to belt him for six.
From 48 deliveries, Tucker amassed his 71 until he ran out of partners, coming in at number three.
As you can see from the scoreboard, we seemed to be keeping up with these big teams,” Balbirnie said.
It was another problem with the wickets column, and who knows whether Tucker would have stayed in the game.”
