Cricket World Cup

[Broken Wing]

Buggah!

[tackle-bag]

That was precisely what they needed not to do. O'Brien's wicket was the one they needed to hang on to for dear life - Botha is scoring far too slowly.

[West Brit]

Bugger.

[Broken Wing]

Down to our second last baker......

[Mackman15]

Steeped

[jezzer]

Is Mooney the fat bloke?

[sarah_lennon]

Remember, we can bat all the way down to TJ

He's going to need to!

[Broken Wing]

Hell.

[sarah_lennon]

Ugh! Botha gone

going to run out of wickets

[West Brit]

Ok, now it's over. It was a decent crack though, and I'm not sure all teams in the group will be as suited to these conditions as Bangladesh.

[tackle-bag]

This is an absolutely disgraceful batting collapse. Sure, the conditions aren't great but almost all of the Irish wickets have been lost through rash shot attempts as opposed to anything special from the Bangladeshi bowlers.

I hasten to add once again that if Rankin hadn't been throwing the ball into the stands in the first innings, we'd probably only need ten runs right about now.

[Sea_point]

Joyce also has to take a certain amount of flak too, given mis meagre contribution (which was achieved very slowly). As a senior player, in a game in which the run rate was never going to require urgency, he shouldn't have attempted such a shot.

Difficult becaue odf the two O'Brien is the mroe agrresive batsman, so it made sense for Joyce to hold fire. But once Wickets start going it's vry hard to switch.

Anyway it's prety much all over withonly Dockrell and Rankin left to offer support to Johnston with 38 require off the Nine overs left ...

Pretty much everything crossed, but not holding out much hope. the Bangla's have a lot more top level experience than us in the last couple of years...

The rankingsdon't lie, three times as many ODI games as us this year ...

ICC Cricket ODI Teams Rankings & Ratings
Rank ICC Cricket ODI Teams ICC Matches ICC Points ICC Cricket Rating
1 ICC Cricket Australia Team 43 5617 131
2 ICC Cricket India Team 45 5369 119
3 ICC Cricket Sri Lanka Team 35 4148 119
4 ICC Cricket South Africa Team 30 3526 118
5 ICC Cricket England Team 35 3800 109
6 ICC Cricket Pakistan Team 32 3210 100
7 ICC Cricket New Zealand Team 35 3203 92
8 ICC Cricket Bangladesh Team 33 2177 66
9 ICC Cricket West Indies Team 20 1321 66
10 ICC Cricket Ireland Team 11 425 39
11 ICC Cricket Zimbabwe Team 34 1272 37
12 ICC Cricket Netherlands Team 6 103 17
13 ICC Cricket Kenya Team 9 0 0

[West Brit]

This is an absolutely disgraceful batting collapse. Sure, the conditions aren't great

I would never call a batting performance disgraceful on the sub-continent. A lot of teams far better than Ireland have done a lot worse in those conditions.

[tackle-bag]

This is an absolutely disgraceful batting collapse. Sure, the conditions aren't great

I would never call a batting performance disgraceful on the sub-continent. A lot of teams far better than Ireland have done a lot worse in those conditions.

My point is, though, that at least half of the wickets shouldn't have been lost at all. Players were attempting ambitious shots in the air when all we needed was to steadily prod singles for the afternoon. There is no question but that between the poor bowler selections and our hot-headedness during the chase, we have been the architects of our own downfall.

[West Brit]

This is an absolutely disgraceful batting collapse. Sure, the conditions aren't great

I would never call a batting performance disgraceful on the sub-continent. A lot of teams far better than Ireland have done a lot worse in those conditions.

My point is, though, that at least half of the wickets shouldn't have been lost at all. Players were attempting ambitious shots in the air when all we needed was to steadily prod singles for the afternoon. There is no question but that between the poor bowler selections and our hot-headedness during the chase, we have been the architects of our own downfall.

Yep, just needed one batsman to keep his head and see it through.

[tackle-bag]

Appropriately enough, Boyd Rankin is the player who effectively ends Ireland's interest in this World Cup.

[Hornet]

England 138 - 2 after 29 overs. Alan Lewis in the commentary box casting his eye over the procedings. Nice work if you can get it!

[tackle-bag]

We need wickets, urgently. I can't see our batsmen chasing down a total of 300+ which is where England are headed at the moment. However, if we can get rid of Trott soon and dismiss Collingwood cheaply, you would have to expect their run rate to come right down.

[tackle-bag]

England are at 198-2 after 33 overs. We need to get Trott out of there in the next spell or the total is going to become unassailable. If England have 7 or 8 wickets left with 10 overs to go, they'll just start smashing everything.

[Sea_point]

Anthing over 200 against the England attack isn't realistic. this is a huge step up for most of our guys...

You'd sort of wonder what the ECB would have done with Boyd Rankin if the big lug had come through the academies. Very costly again, which is fine if you're picking up the big wickets aqnd evryone else is tidy.

Serious gulf in class/experience with the ball, and Englands batting strength down the order means they'll bludgeon us ouf ot the game before we face a ball...