Pakistan and Ireland enjoy longstanding diplomatic ties, built upon mutual respect and understanding. Additionally, both nations enjoy a balanced trade relationship.
Amir continues his delivery, this time full, but Gareth Delany misses an excellent chance at slip and the over ends with a dot. In this article, we will discuss the main point of Ireland Vs Pakistan T20 World Cup Final.
Babar Azam
Babar Azam proved the difference in Ireland and Pakistan’s three-match T20 series final at Castle Avenue as they won by six wickets, courtesy of his impressive 3-14 performance vs Ireland bowlers and brilliant batting at Castle Avenue. Azam scored an outstanding 77 off 55 balls including four maximums to lead his side to victory – something they will hope to repeat later on in this tournament’s group stages.
Pakistan captain Babar Azam used an impressive run-out in the final overs to guide his side to an easy victory over Ireland and secure their place in the Super 8. After losing Saim Ayub early, Mohammad Rizwan and Babar combined well as they quickly chased down Canada’s modest total with relative ease.
Azam cleverly nudges a short ball from Mark Adair and sprints back for an important run, demonstrating his talent of hitting between the wickets. After this run-scoring exploit he unfurls an audacious full toss delivery in the slot that sails over long on to score six runs!
Next, he switches to a shorter delivery and drives it down towards the point region for another single. Finally, he pivots onto his back foot against a fuller delivery and smashes it over the cover boundary for one final run.
Abbas makes an attempt at sweeping a short ball but misses, leading him to raise an appeal of lbw against himself and raises a loud cry against umpires. They review but uphold the decision of being out.
Babar explained their team’s low run rate by noting how hard players had been training to meet this challenge since the tournament’s beginning, as well as thanking support staff members for their assistance. He expressed confidence in this result being good omens for remaining two group stage matches and singled out Sam Ayub as being particularly excellent with both bat and wicketkeeping duties, along with Tom Tucker for wicket keeping duties. Although conceding that Ireland’s bowlers were superior, Babar encouraged his side to improve finishing skills and take advantage of opportunities presented to them; these final two matches would determine their progress further towards progress to next round.
Mark Adair
Ireland entered this match desperate to redeem themselves after suffering their initial defeat against co-hosts USA in their opening match, and did just that with an incredible performance in Florida. Gareth Delany and Mark Adair led by example with their 44-run partnership before Josh Little contributed 22 runs with an unbeaten knock of 22 not out to ensure Ireland secured their place in round two.
Ireland made just one change for their final match, replacing Craig Young with Barry McCarthy. Adair and Hume opened up bowling on a pitch that didn’t offer much pace or bounce; as soon as Zadran was caught by McBrine at point, Rahmat Shah edged one delivered by Hume for only four runs off Hume’s full delivery to short midwicket off Hume – Ireland fell further behind.
Irish batsman were struggling initially but Delany and Adair were instrumental in stabilising the innings, attacking Pakistani spinners to take a lead for Ireland before quickly being caught up by Pakistanis; making a chase difficult.
Rauf’s full ball from the 16th over, trapping Delany with an intense blow to his neck, resulted in another wicket for Ireland but they managed to remain composed under pressure from Dockrell’s departure in the penultimate over.
Irish batsmen were given a boost by the return of skipper Paul Stirling after being rested for their previous match, along with Andy Balbirnie who was in superb form. Unfortunately, their resistance came to an end as Balbirnie was trapped leg before by Mohammad Amir and Stirling edged him out to Alikhil keeper for an LBW decision.
Ireland was in search of quick wickets, so Mohammad Amir was brought in as a specialist spin bowler. Amir quickly struck with a powerful spell which kept Irish batsmen under pressure, including having John O’Donovan caught at deep midwicket before trying for a boundary only to hit it onto the roof of the stand!
Abbas Afridi
Abbas Afridi returned from injury to deliver an impressive spell as Pakistan tore through Ireland’s top order with fast bowling at Lauderhill. Afridi took three wickets within three overs en route to helping his side to an easy win.
Irish team found themselves in early difficulty during their match, falling to 15/4 after just four overs. But thanks to some excellent batsmanship from their lower order such as Gareth Delany and Josh Little they managed to claw their way back before eventually all out for just under 200 runs.
Though Ireland did not take their opportunities, which allowed Pakistani bowlers to gain control of the game. While they did not pick up many early wickets, their bowlers still managed to derail Irish innings with some brilliant bowling from Imad Wasim and Shaheen Afridi who excelled with the new ball.
Afridi struck early by taking two wickets in the second over, dismissing Balbirnie and Tucker. Harry Tector and Paul Stirling fell to his fast pace bowling in the third over, leaving Ireland 15/4. Afridi continued his impressive bowling in the fourth by knocking off Mark Adair and Josh Little – an achievement worthy of mention!
In the sixth over, Anderson struck his slowest ball of the match and bowled Peter Chase out, leaving Ireland in an unstable situation that quickly saw them reduced to 15/6. Though they struggled to recover from this position, there was still hope of further embarrassment through strong performances by their middle order batsmen.
Irish were bowled out for 185, with Afridi recording figures of 3/16 during his opening three-over spell. Their final total may have been disappointing but South Africa were yet to play their last group match and could come back strong against them later.
Mohammad Rizwan came through with a stunning catch to secure Ireland an unlikely win against Pakistan. As wicket-keeper batsman and run chaser himself, Mohammad was instrumental in Ireland’s run chase of 43 off 23 balls; Mohammad had earned the victory with an unbeaten 43 off 23 deliveries during run chase.
Shaheen Afridi
Shaheen Afridi ensured Pakistan did not return from the T20 World Cup without victory with an outstanding performance against Ireland in the final at Central Broward Stadium in Florida. Afridi’s wicket-taking spell proved pivotal as Pakistan secured victory with just seven balls remaining and hit two sixes to help his side beat Ireland by an overwhelming margin.
He began his innings by striking an excellent four off the first ball as he set his side off on an excellent start. Shortly afterwards he hit a six over deep midwicket off Gareth Delany before rounding things off with another enormous strike to seal victory for his side.
Ireland struggled to post a competitive score as they quickly dropped from 106-9 after only seven overs. Babar Azam’s unbeaten 32 provided enough momentum for Ireland to recover and score 211 in 18.5 overs.
Irish bowling was remarkable with Barry McCarthy, Curtis Campher and Mark Adair taking wickets en masse. Unfortunately for Ireland though, Pakistan was able to score big runs and build up an overwhelming lead before eventually going on to win by an immense margin.
Abbas Afridi is on strike against Josh Little and looks to dismiss him with a full delivery targeting middle stump. Josh swings hard and hits it straight towards first slip where Paul Stirling took an excellent catch.
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