Sports

Sri Lanks Tops Ireland: World Cup Super 8

by Jordan Yerman | April 15, 2007 at 01:49 pm

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UPDATE: Ireland must now bow out of World Cup contention...

[q
url="http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/cricket/6562559.stm"]Ireland's
World Cup came to a sorry end as Sri Lanka thrashed them by eight
wickets with 40 overs to spare in their Super 8 clash in Grenada.

The Irish were bowled out for 77, mainly thanks to Farveez Maharoof (4-25) and Muttiah Muralitharan (4-19).[/q]

Ireland claimed the scalp of a second Test-playing nation at the World Cup as they defeated Bangladesh by 74 runs in their Super 8 encounter in Barbados.

Bangladesh were set 244 to win but lost wickets at regular intervals.

Mohammad Ashraful (35) played some fine shots but when he went with the score on 102-5 defeat was inevitable.

Earlier, William Porterfield grafted his way to an invaluable 85 while Kevin O'Brien (48) and Trent Johnston (30) supplied some late Irish fireworks.

The match was supposed to be one of the highlights of the Super 8 stage, with Pakistan and India coming head to head at the splendidly rebuilt Kensington Oval.

But instead of the two Asian giants, who crashed out at the group stage, it was left to the two bottom-ranked teams remaining in the tournament to try and put on a show.

After winning the toss and batting, the Irish faced a testing new-ball spell from Shahadat Hossain and Mashrafe bin Mortaza on a wicket featuring good pace and bounce.

Porterfield rode his luck, twice edging short of second slip and being dropped off a no-ball, but Bangladesh could not make the breakthrough.