Twenty20 World Cup Qualifier Warm Up Match V The Netherlands

Irish Show Strength in Depth with Six Wicket Warm Up Victory Over Netherlands

Irish Captain William Porterfield led from the front today with a stylish, well timed match winning 75 not out in Ireland's six wicket victory over The Netherlands in a T20 World Cup Qualifier warm up match. Restricting the Dutch to under 140 pleased the Skipper who praised the bowlers used. Losing opener Paul Stirling very early proved no problem for the Irish as Porterfield and Niall O'Brien steadied the ship with a good partnership. Porterfield said Ireland will be taking nothing for granted in this unusual qualifying tournament which has six teams to qualify. He hopes Ireland will bring the momentum built up with this victory into the tournament proper. A tournament Porterfield says Ireland are here to win, not just to qualify from.

Barry Chambers: William well batted, a perfect warm up game for Ireland?

William Porterfield: Yeah I wouldn't go as far as saying perfect. It was a really good run out, and it was a good win. I think to bowl on that wicket and restrict them to under 140 was a very good effort. Especially after they did get off to a bit of a start. There was a couple of big overs in the first six. To claw them back through the middle, and even put pressure on them at the stage when we weren't taking wickets, was great. And that showed at the end, there was a few fantastic spells in there. I'm not quite sure of figures, but `Cusey' (Alex Cusack) can't have gone for any more than fours, and you had `Murts' (Tim Murtagh) up front.

There's probably lads I haven't singled out there `Dockers' (George Dockrell) sure everybody it was a fantastic effort by all the boys.

Barry Chambers: Alex got 2 for 14, a superb performance from him, and good to have him back, and gives you plenty options, doesn't it?

William Porterfield: Yeah exactly, and you've got `Kev' (Kevin O'Brien), Kev hasn't bowled there and `Mooners' (John Mooney) hasn't bowled, so you've got two seamers that have played in the top six that haven't bowled. Kevin has been a great performer for us in this format, in 20/20 stuff. So it's great when you go through a game and restrict a team to a below par score, and he doesn't bowl.

Barry Chambers: What about your own form, you looked to be striking it pretty well there?

William Porterfield: Yes, it's obviously getting used to and acclimatising when we got out there, in terms of adjusting to the pitches and stuff. It's nice to spend a bit of time in the middle and obviously nice to see it home, so it is pleasing. But it's just got to be moving forward in the game, and hopefully take that into the tournament, as I haven't scored any runs in the tournament yet.

Barry Chambers: It must be good for the side that two of your bigger players, Kevin and Paul didn't really contribute today, and you have still batted very well?

William Porterfield: Yeah exactly, a good little partnership there with `Nobby' (Niall O'Brien) to set it up, and even Kev did come in, he struck at 200%, like that did give us a good bit of impetus, his 13 off 6 balls or something like that. and that's a good over in this format. Obviously he'll be disappointed, probably all the batters will be disappointed when they got out, up front, the first couple of wickets. So that's one of the things we can keep working on. But yeah it's pleasing to see that total home with four down, five down. That's a pleasing thing. And obviously when I say it's not a perfect performance, we'd like to have done that with two overs to spare. And I think we were in a position to do that. So to take it down to the last was slightly disappointing, but it was nice to finish it as well.

Barry Chambers: Is it a strange sort of tournament with so many qualifiers going through, is the pressure off a wee bit in this, in terms of like six qualifiers seems a hell of a lot?

William Porterfield: It would be a big mistake, it is in theory a lot of qualifiers out of sixteen teams. But I think it would be a big mistake to look at it like that. I think that if we can keep our heads on, and don't look at it like that, we're coming into the tournament to win it, not just to qualify. So we've got a few pretty tough games up front. You know we've got Namibia in our first game, who hit the ground running last year, or in the last Qualifying Tournament. They had seven wins from seven. So we'll be taking nothing for granted and hope to hit the ground running hard.