Ireland emerge victorious against West Indies in their 1st pool match - The 5th match of the World Cup 2015 was played between West Indies and Ireland. It was a Pool B match and I was for the 1st time that these two teams were playing in the tournament. A winning start to a tournament is always what teams look for in the opening game of the tournament. Ireland in the past has created upsets and in this tournament the same is expected from them. After winning the toss in this game Ireland chose to field.
Batting first the West Indies team didn’t get a good start and lost 2 wickets at the score of 31 in8 overs. The 2 wickets that fell included the wickets of Dwayne Smith and Darren Bravo. Both the players were able to score only 18 and 0 runs respectively. Chris Gayle and Marlon Samuels scored 36 and 21 runs respectively which helped the team reach a score of 87/5 in 24th over. The team looked in trouble but Lendl Simmons and Darren Sammy came into help the team fight themselves out. Both scored 102 and 89 runs respectively to take the team score to 304 runs at the end of 50 overs. George Dockrell took 3 wickets in the match and was the most successful bowler from Ireland.
The score of 305 is a huge one but Ireland had a record of chasing huge targets in big tournaments. This match was nothing less and the opening batsmen of the team provided them a great start. Paul Stirling and Ed Joyce made sure that the team was always in hunt as they scored 92 and 84 respectively. Stirling was the 1st to lose his wicket in the 28th over leaving his team at a score of 177/2. Niall O’Brien continued from where he left as he scored 79 runs in 60 balls that helped the team achieve the target in just 46 overs. With this Ireland emerged victorious in their 1st match and Paul Stirling was named as the man of the match for his god batting.