Ireland 158/5 (20 overs) (Gareth Delany 51*; Junaid Aziz 2-16) beat Bahrain 137/5 (20 overs) (Sathaiya Veerapathiran 33* ; Craig Young 3-16) by 21 runs
One down, two to go. Ireland came into Saturday’s qualifier against Bahrain knowing they needed three consecutive victories to qualify for October’s T20 World Cup. They now have one of them after seeing off the Middle East nation by 21 runs in Oman.
If Friday’s defeat to UAE was not too much of a surprise - the UAE are higher ranked and offer their players a domestic competition that features some of the world’s best talent in the form of the T10 league - Ireland, for the sake of qualification and their overall confidence, could not afford to lose Bahrain.
They are after all ranked 16 places below Ireland, have no turf wickets in the entire country and have never played a full-member nation before.
Ireland avoided calamity as a late partnership from two Leinster clubmen, George Dockrell and Gareth Delany, plus an inspired bowling spell from Craig Young was more than enough to secure a victory that will come as a major relief.
The effort from Delany - named player of the match for his unbeaten half-century, his third in T20Is - and Dockrell was much-needed. They came together at 100-4 in the 15th over. When Dockrell departed nearly five overs later, 54 runs had been put on in 33 balls as the pair scored at a rate of nearly 10 an over.
Delany was dropped twice by Bahraini fielders - both sitters - and made them pay with three maximums over the leg side plus one further boundary along the deck.
Dockrell has been threatening an innings like this for a while now, coming good today with 24 off just 11 balls, good for a strike rate of over 200.
Clearly, the mechanical work he has been doing on his power-hitting swing is starting to pay off.
“It’s something we’ve done a lot of over the last number of years” he explained. “Personally I’m trying to work on that swing, it’s something I didn’t do earlier on in my career.
“A lot of it is working on that base, getting nice and low. A lot of it is also feeding off some baseball stuff, loading up on that back foot and pushing off the front foot to snap through with the hands.
“A lot of stuff I did with Scotty (team analyst Scott Irvine) was based on that, keeping the hands back and trying to snap through (with that strong base). We do place a lot of emphasis on range hitting as a group now, trying to hit the ball for six and figuring out what we need to do in our set up to be able to do that.”
Before that vital partnership, once again the powerplay was not an issue for Ireland as skipper Andrew Balbirnie was close to his fluid best, particularly when punishing short balls over the leg side.
That said, usual problems from over number six onwards threatened to derail both the innings and Ireland’s qualifying hopes.
Balbirnie couldn’t believe his luck when he smashed a Junaid Aziz full toss straight to the man in the deep before Paul Stirling, who struggled a touch for timing, chipped a simple return chance back to the same bowler.
Harry Tector was back in the side but a calamitous mix-up between him and Delany saw the YMCA man run-out - Bahrain’s sole piece of decent fielding in an otherwise poor showing - before Lorcan Tucker was then adjudged LBW when missing a paddle sweep, bringing Dockrell to the crease for the momentum-shifting partnership.
Despite a handful of expensive overs, Ireland never looked out of control with the ball during the Bahraini chase.
The two North West men, Craig Young and Andy McBrine, once again both excelled. Young bowled a good length into the pitch, mixing up his pace well as he was both inexpensive and a wicket option, picking up one caught in the deep and two more snared behind by Tucker.
McBrine went for just 19 off his four overs as Ireland’s efforts in the middle period forced the required rate up and up every over that passed by.
With four to go, 18 an over was required. That figure jumped to 21 with three left and though Singh’s 18th and 20th overs were expensive, Bahrain never came close as they ended up 21 runs short.
The final pool game comes on Monday against Germany who, after giving the UAE a scare on Saturday, will be gunning for a famous upset.
