This was the game described by more than one member of the Ireland squad as the biggest in their country’s cricketing history but they can have few complaints on exiting a tournament which they illuminated as often as they were outclassed.
Pakistan – famously troubled chasers – romped to their target of 238 with seven wickets in hand, their resourceful wicketkeeper-batsman Sarfraz Ahmed scoring his maiden ODI century to set up a mouth-watering quarter-final against Australia at this ground on Friday.
Ireland have been the competition’s most unbalanced side, with an often toothless attack behind a batting unit of experience and quality. To succeed in this game, they needed those batsmen to make big scores after William Porterfield won the toss and chose to bat – not, in recent times, their favoured modus operandi. But only the captain, who scored a fine 107, managed that and, true to form, the limitations of their pedestrian bowling – as in the eight-wicket defeat by India in Hamilton on Tuesday – were exposed ruthlessly by Pakistan’s top order.
The bowling was lacklustre, as it has been throughout the tournament. This is the attack that allowed West Indies to score 217 for the loss of two wickets off 26.3 overs after reducing them to 87 for five; that conceded 278 to the UAE and 411 against South Africa; and that almost cost them victory against Zimbabwe, Ireland hanging on to win by five runs having scored 331 for eight. The inadequate bowling meant all six results – three narrow victories and three hefty defeats – contributed to the poor net run-rate that put them out of the competition.
They have lacked the variety to threaten top teams, and have missed the injured Tim Murtagh and the expatriated Boyd Rankin sorely, but lacking menace is one thing, lacking accuracy another entirely. Five of the eight bowlers used in the tournament cost more than a run a ball, with Kevin O’Brien delivering more overs than any other Irish bowler and finishing with an economy rate of 8.18 and 12 clear on top of the undignified list of most boundaries conceded with 54, with one-fifth of his deliveries going to the fence. The team bowled 51 wides in the tournament, to boot.
Ireland had the option of using Craig Young or Peter Chase – the only bowlers they possess of anything greater than medium pace – but Porterfield showed no regrets about the make up of his side’s attack. “We just felt they [Young and Chase] weren’t ready to be thrown in yet,” he said. “We’ve gone into the games picking the side we think could win on the day. They will play throughout this summer and will have learnt a lot from being here in the last eight weeks or so.”
On Sunday, though, the batting gave the bowling little chance. Three careless wickets fell immediately after major reprieves – Ed Joyce and Gary Wilson after surviving DRS shouts, and Kevin O’Brien after being dropped – while the manner of Niall O’Brien and Andrew Balbirnie’s dismissals will also irk their colleagues. Porterfield’s innings was persistent and at times fluent and when he fell with 11 overs and five wickets remaining, a score of 270 seemed likely. Instead, a combination of fine death bowling from Wahab Riaz and Sohail Khan and an inability to rotate the strike or find the boundary cost Ireland. The last 12 overs cost 58 with six wickets falling.
“It’s very disappointing,” said Porterfield. “We’ve played some very good cricket in this tournament but with the score that we had, we had to bowl very well and take a few early wickets and once they got a start we were always going to be a bit behind. We were 40 or 50 short of what would have been a very competitive total. But you have to give credit to how they played; they didn’t really let us back into the game.”
The Adelaide Oval was only one-fifth full, but Ireland’s vocal fans enjoyed the occasion, their singing of The Fields of Athenry competing with the equally voluble Pakistan supporters’ rendering of Pakistan Zindabad. Like Porterfield, Ireland’s fans will leave having made many new friends and without complaints, departing as the pride of the associate game.
Pakistan were joined in the quarter-finals by West Indies, who travel to Wellington to face the unbeaten New Zealand after defeating UAE by six wickets in Napier. UAE were reduced to 46 for six, with Jason Holder taking four wickets, but Amjad Javed and Nasir Aziz scored half-centuries in a fine recovery to haul them to 175. Johnson Charles, replacing Chris Gayle at the top of the West Indies order, scored 55 off 40 balls to set up a leisurely chase.