England beat Ireland by four wickets on a glorious autumn day in the new home of Irish cricket in Malahide. Chasing what appeared to be competitive target of 270 England initially looked to be struggling as Tim Murtagh and Trent Johnston ripped through the top order reducing England to 48 for 4 wickets. However Eoin Morgan and Ravi Bopara crushed Ireland’s hopes of finally winning a home game against a major nation. They put together a world record fifth wicket ODI stand of 226. Eoin Morgan smashed 124 of just 106 balls with 8 fours and 4 sixes. Bopara needed only 74 balls including 10 fours and 5 enormous maximums.
Tim Murtagh bowled his ten overs unchanged and finished with the impressive figures of 3 for 33 while Trent Johnston took 1 for 34 off 7 overs. Unfortunately the rest of the Ireland bowling was at best anaemic and at times very poor. George Dockrell conceded 73 runs of his ten overs and appears to be going through a crisis of confidence this season. Kevin O’Brien was hit to all parts conceding 41 off just 4 overs. The inability of the Ireland bowlers to capitalise on good starts this season must be a cause for concern. The winning partnership took just 169 balls with the last 13 overs producing a T20 like 133 runs.
In what eventually became a tale of two captains it was a magnificent century from William Porterfield that propelled Ireland to what should have been a competitive total of 269 for 7 wickets. Porterfield thrilled the near capacity crowd of some 9500 with 13 crisply struck boundaries and brought up his hundred in the grand manner by pulling Boyd Rankin over mid-wicket for six. This was his fifth ODI century and he reclaimed the highest runs aggregate in ODI’s from Kevin O’Brien.
On a beautiful warm morning in the spectacular setting of Malahide, England won the toss and asked Ireland to bat first. Ireland gave an ODI debut to seam bowler Max Sorensen which meant that Andrew White and Eddie Richardson were left out. As expected former Ireland opening bowler Boyd Rankin made his England ODI debut.
It was Rankin who made the first breakthrough when Paul Stirling was caught at slip for 10 with the score on 25. He then took the vital wicket of Ed Joyce although it was in a bizarre manner as Joyce’s back foot slipped and dislodged a bail.
Porterfield shared partnerships of 59 with Niall O’Brien and then 63 with John Mooney. The final ten overs of the innings added 90 runs helped by an unbroken 40 of just 25 balls between Max Sorensen, who hit two big sixes, and Trent Johnston who hit his final ball in an Ireland shirt in Dublin for a straight four.
Rankin was the most successful bowler with 4 for 47, although James Threadwell caused the most problems with his off spin and only conceded 35 runs and took 2 wickets.
©INPHO/Morgan Treacy
