West Indies lost to Ireland in their third ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2022 match on Friday evening and were therefore eliminated from the tournament. Batting first West Indies made 145-6 off their 20 overs to which the Irish replied with 150-1 off 17.3 overs to record victory by nine wickets at Bellerive Oval in Hobart.
Scoreboard here:https://www.windiescricket.com/matches/210756/#scorecard
For West Indies, it was the second defeat of the preliminary round and therefore they cannot qualify for the Super 12s stage of the marquee event. On Monday they lost to Scotland but rebounded on Wednesday with a magnificent win over Zimbabwe. However, they were not able to repeat on Friday as Ireland’s experienced opener Paul Stirling steered his team to victory with a composed 66 from 48 balls as they reached the target with 15 balls to spare.
He shared a 73-run opening stand with skipper Andy Balbirnie (37) to get the chase away to a positive start and then combined in an unbroken partnership of 77 with Lorcan Tucker, who capped an unbeaten 45 by striking the winning boundary.
West Indies skipper Nicholas Pooran said the team didn’t make the most of the good batting conditions after winning the toss and electing to take the first knock. Brandon King’s 62 not out was the stand-out innings as he marked a successful return to the team after an illness.
He faced 48 balls and hit six fours and a six, but no other batter got going. In the early stage, Johnson Charles hammered 24 off 18 balls with three fours and a towering six over long-on, while at the back-end Odean Smith hit two sixes and a boundary in 19 not out off 12 balls.
“We haven’t batted well in this tournament at all. On a really good batting surface, making 145, to ask the bowlers to defend that was always going to be a challenge. We have disappointed our fans back home. Most importantly, we’ve disappointed ourselves,” Pooran said.