Ireland qualifies for the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup

Ireland earned a spot at the T20 World Cup after defeating Oman by 56 runs at the Al Almerat Stadium. The Irish side set a score of 166 runs, players Gareth Delany and Harry Tector formed a dynamic partnership and came together to put on 82 runs in 57 balls. They were able to defend it and defeated the Omani side in the 19th over itself with the team being all out after scoring 109 runs.

The Omani side started out with great confidence but after scoring 68 runs and losing two wickets by the tenth over they started to fall back and lost eight wickets in just 41 runs.

Andy McBrine was Man of the Match with him scoring 36 of 21 balls for the Irish side as well as securing two wickets for the team. Two other standout bowlers were Josh Little, who secured two wickets by giving away only 14 runs and Simi Singh got three wickets from 20 runs he finished up the match in this third bowling over itself.

Captain Andrew Balbirnie held the ship well and made sure the bowling line-up helped them get the right wickets and restrict the Omani side.

After the match Balbirnie said, “I think our determination got us there today, we knew at the start of the week we needed to win three games, and we’ve got better every match – and that’s what you need to do in tournament cricket.”

“Our T20 cricket has been inconsistent, and to win three matches in a row we knew we’d have to be at our best – we managed to do that, and that was probably our best all-around performance.”

“We lost a few early wickets, but Gareth Delany and Harry Tector’s partnership was world-class. What impressed me was that they came out firing from ball one and didn’t just take their time to assess conditions – we’ve encouraged the batting group to back yourself and back your shots from the start, and they did that today.”

This will be their seventh straight appearance at the World Cup. Their next match was against UAE on the 24th of February wherein they were defeated by one run. They are in talks to play against India. This will be their first encounter since 2018. These matches will be part of their prep and the dates will be decided after a meeting in July. The final World Cup will be held in Australia[FH1]  from the 1st of October 2022 to the 13th of November 2022.