Ireland betters the West Indies

Needless to be said, it is not always the wins and losses that count in the game of cricket which was more so in the case of the match between the West Indies and Ireland. Though the West Indies won the match against Ireland by 6 wickets with the man of the match being awarded to the West Indian batsman Ramnaresh Sarwan, it was the Ireland team that took home much of the honors of the game. First of all, it was Ireland who were touring the Caribbean and do not enjoy the home team advantage like the West Indies team.

And then, the West Indies team needed the services of senior batsman - Sarwan to have a win. The West Indian batsmen though not losing wickets at regular intervals and by the end of the match not losing more than 4 wickets which is a decent approach, they had no reason to take the game until the penultimate over of the match when they scored the winning runs in the 44^th over. I think that the West Indies must be reminded that they are in an era where targets more than 300 are chased down with little effort and they must take the example of India who are found doing it repeatedly.

This was once again a needless encounter after the West Indies played the Canadian team a couple of days back. The Irish batsmen played their full quota of 50 overs and also there were two batsmen in Paul Stirling and Kevin O Brien who notched up half centuries for Ireland. They also crossed the 200 run mark unlike Canada who were all out for just 108. But, it is neither Canada's not Ireland's fault. It was interesting to see the Irish captain William Poterfield going in for 7 bowlers out of whom none of them bowled their complete quota of 10 overs.

Likewise, the West Indies captain Darren Sammy bought in just 5 overs to bowl the Irish batsmen out not before they played their complete quota of 50 overs a side. The West Indies team lost two of their in form batsmen namely Shivanarine Chanderapaul and Andre Fletcher with just one run on the board which was a sort of triumph for the Ireland team. One has to recall the fact that it does not make someone jump in joy whenever West Indies beats Ireland but, when it happens the other way round, it definitely makes news headlines. This was the chance for the young legs of the WI team to showcase thei talent and may be they were doing exactly that.