Canada vs. Ireland – Irish Strike Back

Ireland’s Paul Stirling made full use of a reprieve he was given on 9* when Canada dropped a simple chance in the 4th over. Stirling batted 41 more overs adding 168 more runs for a total of 177 from 134 balls (21 x 4, 5 x 6). Stirling made Canada pay for the drop carrying Ireland to a 45 over score of 283/4 and wrote his name into 11th place on the ODI single game scores list. The record is 200* and is held by Sachin Tendulkar of India.

Though they lost 4 more wickets, the Irish added 42 in the last 5 overs to put up a mammoth score of 325-8 their highest since they scored 308 against Canada in 2007. A game incidently that Canada won on the back of an Ashish Bagai century.

In reply Canada did not get off ot a great start losing both openers Patel (9) and Kumar (12) early brining Ashish Bagai and Ruvindu Gunasekera to the crease. Unlike Monday, Bagai (44) and Gunasekera (59) were unable to put together a match winning stand and with their departure faded any chances of a Canadian recovery.

Jimmy Hansra (32) and Balaji Rao (24) with an entertaining cameo tried to recover but it was far too big of a moutnain to climb and Canada will rue missed chances from earlier in the day as a way to sweep the Irish in the ODI series.

Canada looks ahead to the start of the Cricket Canada Summer Festival this week at Malton Cricket Ground.

Canada :

H Patel, NR Kumar, R Gunasekera, A Bagai*, ZE Surkari, AS Hansra, Khurram Chohan, PA Desai, HS Baidwan, WD Balaji Rao, U Bhatti

Ireland :

P Stirling, A. Botha, AD Poynter, KJ O’Brien, AR White, JF Mooney, DT Johnston*, RD McCann, NG Jones, A van der Merwe, GH Dockrell