Scalp Hunter McBrine Bags a Fine South African Brace For First World Cup Wickets

Andrew McBrine is hoping Ireland bounce back strong after today's defeat to a very strong South African outfit.

McBrine struck late in the innings taking the prize wickets of Hashim Amla and AB de Villiers within a couple of balls.

McBrine must be in line to retain his place against the dangerous Zimbabweans in a crucial encounter on Saturday in Hobart.

Barry Chambers: Andrew two pretty high profile scalps for your first World Cup victims?

Andrew McBrine: Yeah not too bad scalps, to be honest, two good players. So just happy coming into the back 10 getting rid of those two players.

Because de Villiers was starting to get going, and Amla was 150, 160, so it was nice to get them with the space of a couple of balls.

Barry Chambers: The spinners did pretty well, but it was a big total over 400?

Andrew McBrine: Yeah I thought Georgie bowled well, Stirlo did a good job as well, and myself I chipped in a bit. But the two lads batted well. I though Amla and Du Plessis gave a couple of chances early on, which we didn't take of course.

They batted very well, took their time, hit the bad balls. They were actually very awkward to bowl to. I actually said to Ed Joyce at one point, whereabouts do you get dots against these boys, and he just started to laugh at me, so he did.

Barry Chambers: I mean it's been a pretty difficult World Cup for all the bowlers, not just the Irish ones. I mean three, four hundreds are happening fairly regularly, aren't they?

Andrew McBrine: Yeah it helps for batter, because the old rules there used to be 5 out, now there's only 4 out and the decks are very flat over here. So the batsman can trust the pace and bounce of the wicket.

Barry Chambers: And obviously now moving onto Zimbabwe, we'll be looking to bounce back in that one?

Andrew McBrine: Yeah we move onto Zimbabwe on Saturday. We have got a day's travelling tomorrow, and back to training Thursday. So we've got a couple of days preparation before the Zimbabwe game on Saturday. Hopefully we bounce back strong.