An anonymous comment on an earlier post made the laughable prediction that Ireland might make it through to the Super 8. I dismissed this claim out of hand, naturally, even while I was checking Ireland's schedule and seeing for myself that Ireland qualifying for round 2 was not out of the question.
A follow up comment pointed out the advantages Ireland gains from its schedule that I had seen but failed to acknowledge. Ireland does have a chance. It is an outside chance, but surely the best of the minnows.
Ireland's opponents are, in this order,
Zimbabwe
West Indies
Pakistan
Zimbabwe are simply so poor at the moment that any small nation would fancy their chances against them.
The West Indies are an entirely different prospect and a Windies victory should be a forgone conclusion. But…there is some cricketing history between Ireland and the Windies that combined with the Windies ability to script absolute meltdowns makes this game rather more interesting. In their last match, in 2004, the West Indies managed to go down to Ireland by 6 wickets, defending 292. Back in 1969 however, Ireland and the Windies played one of the most remarkable games ever. The Irish (and a rumoured night out on the Guinness) dismissed West Indies out for 25 and were declared the winner.
Two wins should be enough to see Ireland through, but even Pakistan shouldn't feel too confident – their match against Ireland is on St Patrick's Day.
(Those of you who read the Sunday Star-Times may recognise that I cribbed most of this post from Denis Edward's article.)
Monday, 12 March 2007
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3 comments:
Nothing anonymous Ben, such wild predictions are on www.sportsfreak.co.nz. Now watch Ireland get hammered in all 3 games...
Anyway, we're doing an article on the World Cup on the Web; drop us a line on freak@sportsfreak.co.nz about what kind of inro you guys want.
I plaed a season at the Leinster Cricket Club (farkin great fun BTW) where Ireland's Trent Johnston was player-coach, bringing some hard nosed Aussie attitude to the locals, who had a lot of ability but not a lot of application. It's still one of my proudest cricketing moments when I yorked Trent twice (OK, in the nets) and hit him on the foot the second time. I'm a shallow, shallow man.
Nice blog, I'm adding you to my blogroll - you might want to check out my drivel over here.
Remember where you read this first...
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