Johnston Bows Out of Twenty20 Arena In True Hollywood Style With Superlative Man of the Match Performance

Just how are Ireland going to do without him? That is the question that must be being contemplated by all Irish Cricket Fans.

In the World Cup Qualifier Final against an excellent Afghanistan team, he once again reminded us of his huge influence in this form of the game for Ireland.

Batting at number 4 he scored 62 from 32 balls with 5 fours and 4 maximums. He then bowled his allotted 4 overs returning 3 for 34.

No doubt Ireland will have plenty of good candidates to fill his huge shoes, but boy will they have a job to do. Johnston may be gone from the Twenty20 Arena, but no doubt he will never be forgotten. Thanks for the memories Trent.

Barry Chambers: Trent we talked about two finals, and a fantastic performance by yourself. One more to go, another performance like that would be something?

Trent Johnston: Yeah hopefully yeah, it's great. We obviously played pretty good cricket yesterday. I suppose us as a bowling unit haven't been sort of hitting out struts throughout this tournament, we did yesterday. We knew Afghanistan were going to come hard at us chasing 225, they had to. But the best thing was, is we kept taking wickets. And that was the key thing.

`Stirlo' was outstanding up front. `Porty'  to get off to that flyer, exactly what we needed to do. It's been a massive part of our success in this form of the game,  those two guys up front. So, it's great to get in there and contribute to a game, with the ball this time, so it's just a good way to go off. We've got a massive massive game in ten days time.

Barry Chambers: Ireland hit the accelerator right from the start and we kept going. Never seen us bat as aggressively as that, was that the game plan, go at them really hard?

Trent Johnston: We've obviously got our game plan, but it probably wasn't going out that hard, , just I think the big thing is that it was a hell of a wicket out there today. You know they bowled probably a few loose balls, and we got after them. We had a couple of chances and we took them, and we hit a few out of the middle of the bat, and we just kept going, and that's what we wanted to try and do, you know, Kevin coming in a 3, he just kept going, his first three balls I think he was on 15 or 14 or whatever it was. So you know just to keep that momentum going was crucial for us, and we did that, so that was great.

Barry Chambers: A huge Afghan crowd here, but a bit like a European soccer match, we scored early and silenced them?

Trent Johnston: Yes, we did, and I think that was sort of,  the ovation that `Stirlo' got when he came off from batting, and the ovation they gave me was evidence that they know the game, they appreciate the game, and they're good sports.

And it was great to play in front of a crowd like that. And the Nepalese supporters were over there supporting for us, rooting for us as well, so that was great, for them to hang around.

So a great atmosphere ever time we play Afghanistan. I don't think it's going to be very different in ten days time. And hopefully the result will be the same as well.