PAUL Stirling scored Ireland's fastest ever 50 as Ireland annihilated Canada to reach the semi final of the World Twenty20 qualifying tournament in Dubai this morning.

After restricting Canada to 106 for eight in the International Stadium, Stirling and his captain, William Porterfield, needed only 35 minutes to reach their target without the loss of a wicket, Ireland's biggest ever win in a T20 match.

Stirling's 50 came up in 21 balls, two quicker than Porterfield's record, set just eight days ago in the 10 wickets win over Kenya when Ireland were chasing an even more modest 71.

In the semi final tomorrow morning they will play the Netherlands who defeated Scotland this morning in the other play-off game by three wickets with five balls to spare.

Amazingly, Stirling's wonderful exhibition – he hit nine fours and three sixes - did not win the man of the match, but there were no complaints in the Irish camp when Trent Johnston came forward to receive the award from Cricket Ireland president Richard Johnson.

The 37 year old answered all his critics with a superb four overs up front, finishing with two wickets for nine runs to immediately put Canada on the back foot and they never recovered. The Ireland bowlers did not concede a boundary between the sixth and 17th overs and but for 37 runs in the last five overs Canada would not have reached 100.

On the day, though, a total of 200 probably wouldn't have been enough such was the skill and brutality of the Irish batting.

Stirling, whose previous three innings against Canada were 177, 107 and 26, continued his destruction of the Maple Leaf attack from the off, taking an instant liking to Henry Osinde, with two fours and a six in the first over. The same sequence followed in Osinde's second over and at that stage the Middlesex batsman had scored 28 off 11 balls.

Porterfield continued the mayhem in the fifth over with four boundaries in five balls before Stirling hit one of the shots of the tournament in the next over, a six over extra cover. Three more fours followed in the over, the second bringing up his record-breaking 50 and the third finishing the six powerplay overs with a staggering 82 on the board.

Naturally it slowed down after that with more fielders on the boundary but not by much and 21 balls later it was all over, Stirling fittingly finishing the match and going into the 60s with a boundary. At the other end Porterfield was hardly a slouch, his unbeaten 42 coming off just 25 balls with eight fours.

Earlier, Johnston had received wonderful support from Max Sorensen, who justified keeping his place in the team – Nigel Jones was the player to miss out from the last group game – with a three overs spell in which he took three wickets for seven runs. Credit to the captain for bringing him back as his first over had disappeared for 13 while George Dockrell kept it tight to the end with his second three-wicket haul in three matches.

At the start of the day, Alex Cusack was given another three hours to prove his fitness test but by last night he had failed hit fitness test and Tim Murtagh, newly arrived in Dubai, was officially promoted into the Ireland 14 as his replacement. The uncapped Middlesex bowler is available for selection tomorrow