William Porterfield urges his team to make strong come back
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755, after losing the first game of the two-match series by seven wickets at Belfast, on Saturday May 29, 2011.
The skipper said that his side will have to lift themselves up and for that, they need to be mentally strong. Ireland, after being put into bat, were rolled out in the 20th over for a below par 50-overs total of just 96 runs.
The Irish batting line failed against the Junaid Khan-led Pakistan attack. Only http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Paul-Robert-Stirling-c81193 could show some decency with a 22-ball 39, laced with seven boundaries and a six.
However, the rest of the Irish batting line up failed to even cross 20 runs. Eight of their batsmen fell for single digit scores.
The skipper himself failed to prove a point against the Pakistan attack and could score only four runs off 17 balls before he was caught behind off http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Umar-Gul-c94604.
The http://www.senore.com/Cricket/ICC-World-Cup-2011-c100625 World Cup 2011 star, Kevin O’ Brien, who was expected to play a good innings, also remained unable to make his mark and just scored 15 runs, before he was bowled by Junaid Khan.
Pakistan displayed extraordinary bowling and dominated the Irish batsmen from the first over. http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Mohammad-Junaid-Khan-c77037 was the pick of the bowlers for his marvellous bowling show and was awarded man of the match. The left-arm medium pacer picked up four wickets in just
five overs, while the http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Saeed-Ajmal-c87859 bagged three wickets in three overs.
Pakistan achieved the target for the loss of just three wickets with the help of openers’ remarkable partnership of 73 runs.
Porterfield conceded that their batting was out of sorts against Pakistan.
"It was disappointing to be bowled out that cheaply. We wanted to put on a performance for the fans and keep a http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Beau-Casson-c1130 around Irish cricket, but we failed with the bat and let people down".
Porterfield added that some of his batsmen got overexcited by Paul Striling’s whirlwind innings, which included seven fours, and, one six, and tried to follow him, which cost them the match.
The second ODI between the fighting Irish and the Cornered Tigers will be played on May 30, at the same venue.
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