Ireland get ODI status

16 April 2007

Trent Johnston shows his appreciation to the Blarney Army © Getty Images

Ireland’s shock victory over Pakistan in the group stages and their 74-run triumph over Bangladesh at the Kensington Oval has confirmed their status as a ranked one-day international team.

It means future matches against other top-ranked teams will count for ranking points and should make Ireland more attractive opposition for leading sides hoping to improve their world ranking.

Their superb triumph came just two days after a comprehensive hammering by Australia at the same venue and Johnston said: “We had to bounce back from the disappointment against Australia and there were a lot of people saying a lot of things about us.

“But it was the best game of cricket I’ve been involved in with these guys for four years. It was the best all-round performance we’ve had - all three disciplines were outstanding.”

Ireland were once again supported by a healthy contingent of the ‘Blarney Army’, many of whom have travelled to watch their two games in Barbados, and Johnston admitted the team were delighted to repay them after their lacklustre display against the world champions.

He said: “There have been a lot of people who have paid a lot of money to come over and watch us play two games of cricket here in Barbados.

“It was obviously a huge game against Australia and we were nothing short of disappointing two days ago, and we had to turn that around quick-smart.

Trent Johnston hugs Ireland coach Adrian Birrell after the victory against Bangladesh

“We’ve done that and now I’m just pleased with the effort the guys have put in. It was a first-class effort and it was an effort from a team that deserves to be playing at this level.

“We’re a tight bunch of guys and there are no problems among the 15 of us. We’ll fight for each other and we’ll hang in there.

“We knew it was a disappointing day for us two days ago and we wanted to turn that around.

“We have a hell of a coach and he’s one of the best motivators I’ve been involved with. We had a good chat and we said this was our big game and we had to go out there and take it and we did that today.”

But Johnston ruled out a traditional Irish party to celebrate their new-found status and revealed they may postpone that until after Wednesday’s final game against Sri Lanka in Grenada.

“We’ll obviously have a couple of quiet ales tonight and after Wednesday we can really tie the dogs loose then - until then we’ll be taking it easy, getting on a plane tomorrow and work hard for the game against Sri Lanka.

“We’re not going to go out there and celebrate and think we’ve won a World Cup or anything like that, because we haven’t.

“We’ve played one good game of cricket since beating Pakistan and that was today, but we’re going to have to play even better than we have today to be competitive against Sri Lanka.”

Bangladesh captain Habibul Bashar was devastated by their performance after they were dismissed for a lowly 169 chasing Ireland’s competitive 243 for seven.

“I think we deserved to lose,” he admitted. “It was one of those days when nothing goes right. We fielded badly and lost too many early wickets - we did nothing right today.

“It is very frustrating. We’ve done a pretty good job in this World Cup so far, beaten two top teams and then when we come up to a game we thought we could have won we have lost. I am very frustrated by it.