Ireland limping towards an early Cup exit

IRELAND captain Paul Stirling’s World Cup is over after he suffered an injury to his posterior cruciate ligament in the loss to Australia yesterday.

The 33-year-old took a diving catch to dismiss Josh Inglis early in Australia’s innings, and landed on the point of his knee on a hard part of the dry ground.

He left the field to get attention but decided he felt well enough to bat.

On the very first ball of Ireland’s innings, Stirling set off for a run and pulled up in pain after two strides, but hobbled his way to the other end to complete the single. The batsman didn’t wait for the physio to rush on, just tucking his bat under his arm and walking off the field in Colombo with obvious difficulty.

He will be assessed again this morning but several sources said he is reconciled to his tournament being over.

It wasn’t a great day for the captains of both sides, as Ireland’s T20 World Cup campaign all but ended yesterday with a chastening defeat to Australia.

Just 30 minutes before the start Australia were deprived of their skipper Mitchell Marsh.

The all-rounder had been hit in the groin during training on Sunday, and experienced ‘ongoing pain and discomfort’ which was restricting his movement.
Scans revealed internal testicular bleeding and he was ruled out of action.

Two defeats in their first two matches leaves Ireland hoping for an improbable set of results and a turbo-charge to their flagging run-rate. Suitcases can start to be packed.

While Sunday’s defeat to Sri Lanka could be laid at the feet of poor catching, yesterday saw Ireland outperformed in all areas by a more professional, if weaker than usual Australian side.

Hopes were moderately high before the game, with the Aussies injury woes taking out their terrifying triumvirate of Mitchel Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins, and then Marsh stepping down dramatically.

Former skipper Steve Smith was rushed to Sri Lanka last night as cover should Marsh be forced out of the tournament.

Stirling’s miserable day started with losing the toss, and then saw the catch-dropping curse continue in the first over. But Australia soon handed Ireland a wicket when stand-in skipper Travis Head was runout.

His partner, Inglis, set off for an unlikely single to which Head roared ‘NO!’ but, realising Inglis was too far down, he tried to make the run but was well short of his ground when Ben Calitz threw to bowler Mark Adair.

The run-rate was soaring past 10 an over as Inglis and Cam Green added 49 before Green fell to a diving catch by George Dockrell, and soon after the spinner induced Inglis to loft the ball to Stirling at cover. When Tucker took an excellent catch off Harry Tector to dismiss Glenn Maxwell the Aussies were 88-4 at the half-way mark.

The partnership between Matt Renshaw (37) and Marcus Stoinis (45) proved decisive, with the tail adding a useful 33 off the last three overs.

Facing a target of 183, a good start was necessary for Ireland, but that was dashed in seconds as Stirling limped off.

Harry Tector mistimed a Matt Kuhnemann delivery to deep extra cover, and the next ball saw for Ross Adair, who had hit a couple of nice boundaries.

Nathan Ellis has taken his chance in the absence of the Aussie galacticos, and has built up a name on his accurate yorkers and change of pace. He also frequently uses his lethal slower ball at the start of spell, but either Adair didn’t get the memo or the memo was never sent. A devastating slower ball completely foxed the Knights batsman, and he walked off with middle stump uprooted.

Ellis picked up Curtis Campher two balls later, and Calitz next over for a spell of 2-1-5-3 in the powerplay.

Tucker got to hit a six off his Trinity team-mate Kuhnemann, with whom he shared a 160 partnership back in 2019.

The College Park pitch has never been as dry as this, and the Aussie spinners made hay, especially Adam Zampa who ended with 4-23.

Tucker (24) and Dockrell (41) showed resistance but the run-rate mounted and both were snapped up by the superb Zampa. Ellis returned to take the last wicket, giving him 4-12 and the match award.

With nothing left in the game, Stirling did not return at the fall of the ninth wicket.

Tucker said: ‘We didn’t start as well as we would have liked. The spinners did pretty well to put us back in the game: 150-160 was in our mind, the way we were set up we could’ve gone after that.’

Ireland play Oman on Saturday, needing a St Valentine’s Day run-rate massacre.