Ireland upset England in ICC World Cup 2011 - Kevin O'Brien shines
Ireland completed the first upset of the ongoing ICC World Cup 2011 by defeating favourites England in a nail biting fixture, while chasing a mammoth total of 327 runs.
It was definitely not a night for Andrew Strauss’s men. Ireland reached 329 for the loss of 7 wickets with four balls to spare.
For http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Ireland-c751 it was the young, Kevin O'Brien, who pulverized the English bowling attack with clean and hard hitting. The English pacers just didn’t know where to bowl against the belligerent Irishman, who seemed to be on a rampage,
clobbering the cricket ball from the moment he came in to bat.
O’Brien, with his innings of 113 runs, scored the fastest century off 50 balls in a cricket World Cup. With this performance he helped Ireland secure their greatest victory with a three-wicket victory in Bangalore, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/India-c750. This is also
Ireland’s highest run chase ever.
O’Brien and fellow batsman, Alex Cusack, added 162 runs together in a partnership, which basically changed the whole situation of the game that was clearly in England’s favour, before O’Brien and Cusack’s partnership, took the match
away from the Poms. Later it was John Mooney, who joined the flamboyant O’Brien.
At this point there were still 55 more runs needed to hand England their first World Cup defeat by Ireland. For a moment things seemed to have gotten out of Irish hands when O’Brien couldn’t get the strike.
But after spending some time on the wicket, Mooney, now with his eye in, began timing his shots, which ultimately resulted in boundaries. The first boundary came off an outside edge, which was clearly a cause of frustration for English
skipper, Andrew Strauss, as England had managed to control the flow of runs but with this edge the boundaries started coming back as Mooney hit two impressive boundaries through the covers later.
This surely lifted some pressure from the Irish, which had been put on them by the English pacers.
Nevertheless, England weren’t in a mood to let things get out of hand and caused many Irish hearts to pop in their mouths by running O’Brien out in the dying stages of the match. However, Ireland by this time were in a comfortable
position.
Stuart Broad was then hit for a four by Trent Johnston, which brought the run rate below a run-a-ball. In the last over, Ireland needed just three runs for victory. Ireland were perhaps extremely eager to clinch glory and on just the
second ball of the last James Anderson over, Mooney hit a four, sparking celebrations in the Irish camp the moment the ball touched the boundary line.
This victory has clearly shown that the minnows do have the potential to create upsets in the World Cup and Ireland have proved yet again that they are a team that no one should take them lightly, as they defeated cricketing giants,
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755, in the 2007 World Cup and now they have a triumph against rivals England under their belt in yet another World Cup.
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