Joyce Rues Basic Errors Which Cost Ireland in Narrow World Cup Defeat

Ireland's Isobel Joyce knows that Ireland came close to achieving their goal of a victory at the World Cup Twenty20 tournament here in Sylhet.

In restricting Pakistan to 119 the bowlers did their work, despite mistakes in the field which yielded 10 to 15 runs to the winners.

Ireland started steadily in reply but in the end could only manage 105. Joyce hopes the experience gained by this young Ireland team will help them improve, so that they can compete at the highest level of the game.

Barry Chambers: Isobel, you're surely disappointed after a fantastic performance in the field, but just coming up short?

Isobel Joyce: Yes, very disappointed. I wouldn't say fantastic performance in the field, I think our bowling was very good today, probably more it was our fielding that let us down. We probably left ten, fifteen, twenty runs on the pitch there that would have made all the difference really when it came down to our batting.

Barry Chambers: After having hit the three fours in the one over, gave you a bit of momentum, but I think it would have taken yourself and Clare maybe to take it a wee bit further if you were going to successfully chase them?

Isobel Joyce: Yes, I think there was definitely a bit of nerves for anyone coming in after us. We got off to a decent start, but not a flyer, and the wicket definitely got slower and lower and the outfield was very slow.

So once they were able to put fielders out, it was very difficult to score boundaries. And I think we just didn't take our ones well enough, there were two or three dots in a lot of overs there in the middle, and then it just got,  suddenly you're eyeing over fifteen, and you need too many runs to win really.

Barry Chambers: This will be a great experience for Ireland. You are a very young team, apart from two or three, but surely they'll learn from this?

Isobel Joyce: Yeah I hope so, I mean we say we learn from a lot of stuff, so I hope we learn the lesson this time, that you can't let these opportunities slip by, and you've got to take them by the scruff of the neck when you have them, especially in Twenty20 Cricket, every single run counts.

And there were a few fumbles, one was let through someone's legs and stuff like that. And I think that was the difference today, they made sure of everything. They definitely did their homework on us, even since we played them last, they've definitely been looking at us, and they made sure they got over the line, which is something which we didn't do.

Barry Chambers: And of course again you mentioned the bowlers, Elena Tice and Lucy O'Reilly did very well at a very difficult stage of the game?

Isobel Joyce: Yeah they did excellently. I think bowling them near the end, it's nearly a positive that they haven't played too much, they haven't been scarred by many losses, even though Elena maybe went for a few runs near the end against South Africa. And they relish that opportunity. I asked Lucy afterwards did she enjoy that, and she said yeah I had loads of fun, which is lovely.