T20 World Cup Group B: Zimbabwe (174-7, 20 overs) (Sikandar Raza 82; Josh Little 3-24) beat Ireland (143-9, 20 overs) (Curtis Campher 27; Blessing Muzarabani 3-23) by 31 runs. Scorecard here.
Backs to the wall now. In a brutally unforgiving tournament format where just three games in the space of a week determine if Ireland qualify for the main phase of the T20 World Cup and extend their stay in Australia well into November, defeat in the first game shrinks the odds of doing so drastically.
After Monday’s 31-run defeat to Zimbabwe to start the campaign, the remaining two games against Scotland (Wednesday) and Zimbabwe (Friday) essentially must end in victory, otherwise Ireland leave the sport’s global showcase after just a week for the second time in as many years.
“We’re going to have to play pretty aggressive cricket going forward in the next two games, we’re chasing the group,” explained captain Andrew Balbirnie after the demoralising defeat. “But I suppose if you look at it, we won our first game last year and didn’t go through so hopefully we can flip it and lose our first game this year and still go through.
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“It’s disappointing because we had high hopes of having a really good week and the way the tournament works it’s nearly the day before the next game, you don’t have too much time to dwell on what’s happened. You just have to put your best foot forward for the next game.”
Monday night in Hobart certainly was not Ireland’s best foot forward, but it started off threatening to be when Josh Little sent a snorting, rising effort through to Lorcan Tucker via the bat of Regis Chakabva with just the second delivery of the game.
He picked up another wicket in the opening overs when Wesley Madhevere pulled a shorter delivery straight to deep square — Little’s final figures of 3-24 a stunning effort at a high-scoring Bellerive Oval.
Simi Singh also rewarded the gamble of bowling spin inside the powerplay by getting Craig Ervine to dance down past one for Tucker to send him packing stumped, and though his final figures of 2-31 ended up on the expensive side, the combined catching effort on the boundary from Mark Adair and Harry Tector for Singh’s second wicket was fantastic.
Regardless, Zimbabwe had lost three wickets in the powerplay, the magic number that normally determines defeat for the batting side.
Only that figured without Sikandar Raza. The Zimbabwean all-rounder is in the form of his life, averaging 40 at a strike-rate of 155 in 2022, and he carried that prestige into his World Cup opener, blasting his way to 82 off 48 balls in a brutal counter-attack that saw Zimbabwe post 174-7. Curtis Campher, Singh and Gareth Delany all bore the brunt of his stroke play, more often than not when dropping their length short.
“He’s obviously a guy in great form, he didn’t mis-hit many,” admitted Balbirnie when asked about Raza’s game-changing innings.
“He kind of, I wouldn’t say took it away from us because it was a par score at half-time, but he played a key innings in getting them to a total.”
Par it may have been, but even par soon became unattainable for Ireland when four early wickets fell to the swing and extra bounce generated by Zimbabwe’s varied — and crucially — tall attack.
Paul Stirling — second ball of the innings — and Lorcan Tucker were both bowled by Richard Ngarava deliveries that moved off the pitch and in the air, while the 6ft 8 Blessing Muzarabani was what his name suggests for his side, removing both Harry Tector and Balbirnie in the same over with deliveries that rose sharply to send a pair of nicks to Ervine at slip.
At 33-4 after six overs, Ireland’s worst opening period with the bat this year, the game was done. Barry McCarthy’s late fightback could well be crucial if net run-rate becomes an issue for qualification, but that was all it was, consolation.
Given the result, Balbirnie’s decision at the toss to bowl first raises scrutiny given how in 18 T20 internationals at the Bellerive Oval, the team batting first has won on 16 occasions. Unsurprisingly, the skipper was more disappointed with the performance rather than the flip of the coin.
“We wanted to chase,” he explained. “We were comfortable chasing 170 odd, we were happy at the halfway stage and just got blown away in that powerplay.
“If I’m gonna be upset about winning tosses and losing games, it’s gonna be a long stint and I can’t get too worked up about that. It’s [bowling first] something I spoke about with members of the squad and the management and it’s something we’ve done well out of the last few months.”
Elsewhere on Monday, England beat Pakistan in a warm-up game before they start their World Cup next week. Bizarrely, it was a game players themselves labelled as unnecessary given the significant amount of matches they have recently played.
In the other game in Ireland’s preliminary group, Scotland provided a dramatic upset with a thumping 42-run win over the West Indies.
