Bulawayo [Zimbabwe], June 26 : In the ICC Cricket World Cup qualifier match on Sunday, Sri Lanka defeated Ireland by 113 runs. After the defeat, Ireland's captain Andrew Balbirnie said, he is disappointed not to make it to the super six of the tournament.
While batting first, Sri Lanka set a target of 325. Ireland failed to chase the target as they were bowled out on 192.
After the defeat, in the post-match interview, Ireland captain Andrew Balbirnie said, "We knew it was a pretty good pitch, we knew they had good spinners and they bowled well and cleaned us up. Hugely disappointing to not make it to the super six of the tournament. but you got to move on. We are going to pick ourselves up quickly, whenever you play for Ireland there's a lot of pride regardless of the situation and that's what we got to play for in the next game," as per the official website of ICC.
He further added, "We would have probably liked a few more inroads early on. We fought back well and kept them down to a score we thought we could have a crack on but we did not bat well and did not start well."
Coming to the match, Ireland put SL to bat first. SL scored 325 in their innings. A century from Karunaratne and knocks from Sadeera Samarawickrama (82 in 86 balls, with four boundaries). Dhananjaya de Silva (42 in 35 balls, with four boundaries and a six) helped the one-time champions to a big total.
Mark Adair (4/46) and Barry McCarthy (3/56) were among the best bowlers for Ireland.
In the chase of 326 runs, Ireland was never a threat to Sri Lanka. They were reduced to 86/5 at one point. Harry Tector (33 in 35 balls) and Curtis Campher (39 in 31 balls) provided last hope to Ireland but their dismissals by the 20-over mark left the Men in Green on the verge of a massive defeat. Ireland's tail took the aggressive route but could not survive the guile of Hasaranga who finished with 5/79. Besides that, Maheesh Theekshana also took 2/29.
Ireland was bundled out for just 192 in 31 overs.
Karunaratne earned the 'Player of the Match' award for his ton. With this result, Sri Lanka made it to the Super Six stage of the Qualifier while Ireland are out of the World Cup race. One-time champions are at the top with three wins in three matches and six points. On the other hand, Ireland is yet to win a game and has lost all of their three matches. They are in fourth position.
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