Davison sympathises with Irish

John Davison

Even Canada captain John Davison admitted he felt sorry for Ireland after they had failed to defend a total of 308.

Canada, inspired by Ashish Begai who made 122, reeled in Ireland to claim a six-wicket win in the ICC World Cricket League.

“I'm feeling for Ireland,” said Davison. “They obviously batted really well but things didn't work out for them today. We won the toss and obviously wanted to chase after seeing Ireland's last couple of games.

“Ashish batted brilliantly for us. His fitness has improved so much since attending the winter training camp. I wouldn't have put any money on us after the Ireland innings to be honest.”

Davison admitted it was only after 30 overs that he felt his team could win.

“When we reached 30 overs, you can usually double the score from there and so Ashish and I said to each other we're on target here,” said Davison.

“We now still have a chance of reaching the final if we can play really well against Kenya. We had a very bad game against Holland but then had a very close one against Scotland who are the form team here. We played really well against them.

“I think everyone here is pretty even so you always have to think you're in with a chance.”

Ireland coach Adrian Birrell said: “Obviously I'm very disappointed. We just didn't bowl well enough to win. Everyone is finding it difficult to defend in this tournament but obviously 308 should be a winning total.

“They were always up on the run rate, especially in the middle there with Bagai and Davison. that's the partnership that won them the game.

“Trent (Johnston) was not fit to bowl and that was a big setback, but I'm not going to say that's why we lost the game (because players were sick) because I was happy with the team we had on the field.

“Unfortunately we're just not getting our bowling discipline up where it should be.”