Ireland suffer 79 run defeat to Sri Lanka

An excellent bowling performance was not enough to stop Ireland from slumping to a 79 run defeat against Sri Lanka, who missed several key players from their line up, some of whom are trying to find form in the English County Championship ahead of their upcoming test series against England.

After winning the toss, William Porterfield put the tourists into bat with presumably an eye on the bad weather forecast in the afternoon. And while that never materialised, it was still a good decision as Sri Lanka could not deal with the home side’s tremendous bowling early on.

Tim Murtagh took the new ball and thought he had Kusal Perea third ball but it hit his pad instead of the outside edge but he only survived one more delivery as he edged to second slip straight after and a willing Kevin O’Brien took a tremendous catch. This gave Ireland the start they wanted and it was the platform for what would be a good 50 overs in the field.

It was a group effort in the bowling department with the wickets being shared around the bowlers and Max Sorensen the only Irish bowler not to claim one. After Murtagh started things off, Cusack quickly got into the act as he enticed Thirmanne outside his off-stump where he duly edged to Gary Wilson.

Opener Upal Tharanga and Dinesh Chandimal then looked to steady the Sri Lankan ship and they obliged. As they put on 32 before Tharanga fell to Thompson as he also fell to an outside edge caught behind.  Ireland smelt blood as Chandimal was the victim of a brilliant piece of athleticism from Kevin O’Brien who caught him low down off his own bowling to leave the score at 90-4 which the batting line up didn’t really recover from.

Wickets began to tumble at a quick rate as the next 4 wickets went for the next 100 runs. A late burst from the top scorer Kulasakera (42*) and Mendis (18*) saw the scoring finish at 219-8 which the home side would have fancied to get.

The hosts got off to a slow start when both Ed Joyce and Paul Sterling went inside the first 5 overs to leave the score at 5 for 2 until the pace inevitably picked up when Niall O’Brien came to the crease. The older of the O’Brien brothers scored 33 before being tapped LBW by Mendis after an impressive half century with his captain.

His younger brother Kevin was now at the crease and when we was once his teams saviour he was unable to do it on this occasion as he went for a first ball duck trying to pull Lakmal through the legside. This signalled a collapse for the home side as two further wickets fell as Gary Wilson and Stuart Thompson fell to leave Ireland teetering on the brink at 74-6.

Sorensen, Dockrell and Cusack battled to the end but it was never going to be enough. When Sorensen went for 17 the writing was ultimately on the wall for the boys in green and it was finally finished when Murtagh was given out LBW for the final wicket to give the visitors their first victory since being crowned world t20 champions.