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Sunday, June 15, 2025

Balbirnie, McCarthy lead Ireland to dominant win over Windies in first ODI

by

Sport Desk
25 days ago
20250522
Andy Balbirnie scored 112 for Ireland in their win against West Indies in the opening ODI.

Andy Balbirnie scored 112 for Ireland in their win against West Indies in the opening ODI.

DUBLIN – Open­er Andy Bal­birnie and pac­er Bar­ry Mc­Carthy rocked West In­dies in the open­ing One Day In­ter­na­tion­al to set up Ire­land’s com­fort­able 124-run vic­to­ry at Clon­tarf in Ire­land on Wednes­day.

Play­er-of-the-Match Bal­birnie cracked his ninth ODI cen­tu­ry to help pro­pel the home side to 303 for six off their 50 overs af­ter they were sent in to bat by the vis­i­tors.

Mc­Carthy then ran through the Windies’ top or­der to de­rail their run chase, and they were even­tu­al­ly bowled out for 179 in 34.1 overs de­spite a fight­ing half cen­tu­ry from Ros­ton Chase.

Ire­land was giv­en a per­fect start by Bal­birnie and cap­tain Paul Stir­ling, who scored a half cen­tu­ry, with the pair putting on 109 runs in their open­ing part­ner­ship.

They start­ed cau­tious­ly, gath­er­ing just 21 runs from the first six overs, but by the end of the 10th over they had pro­gressed to 54-0 with lit­tle alarm.

Stir­ling brought up a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone sev­en overs lat­er, when he guid­ed left-arm spin­ner Gu­dakesh Motie down to long on for a sin­gle to bring up his 10 000th in­ter­na­tion­al run in all for­mats.

He then romped to his 32nd ODI half cen­tu­ry off 61 balls by dis­patch­ing Motie to the back­ward point bound­ary, as Ire­land cruised to 108-0.

But one run lat­er Chase got the break­through by hav­ing Stir­ling caught at deep back­ward square for 54 off 64 balls, in­clu­sive of six fours and two six­es.

Bal­birnie brought up his half cen­tu­ry off 88 balls soon af­ter and to­geth­er with debu­tant Cade Carmichael added 42 runs for the sec­ond wick­et.

Carmichael looked good for his 16 be­fore he nicked pac­er Matthew Forde be­hind to the wick­et­keep­er to leave Ire­land 151-2 in the 30th over.

His dis­missal brought Har­ry Tec­tor to the crease, and to­geth­er with Bal­birnie they frus­trat­ed the West In­dies bowlers in a 98-run part­ner­ship for the third wick­et.

Dur­ing that time, Bal­birnie reached three fig­ures off 131 balls with a sin­gle off fast bowler Alzarri Joseph, much to the de­light of the large crowd on hand.

Joseph led a West In­dies fight­back in the lat­ter stages by hav­ing Bal­birnie caught at deep ex­tra cov­er for 112 af­ter fac­ing 138 balls to leave Ire­land 249 for three.

He struck nine fours and four six­es in his over two-and-a-half-hour in­nings.

His de­par­ture helped the West In­dies re­strict Ire­land, even though Tec­tor scored 56 from 51 balls, as they on­ly man­aged 38 runs from the last five overs, while los­ing three wick­ets.

Forde was the Windies’ best bowler with 3-68 while Alzarri Joseph took 2-51.

The West In­dies’ run chase was over al­most as soon as it be­gan with Mc­Carthy tear­ing through the top or­der.

With just three runs on the board Evin Lewis was run out by a di­rect throw at the non-strik­er’s end by Tec­tor,

Mc­Carthy fol­lowed up by hav­ing Kea­cy Car­ty caught at mid on for six, Bran­don King caught be­hind for 19 and then trapped Amir Jan­goo plumb in front for a two-ball duck, as West In­dies slumped to 29 for four.

Skip­per Shai Hope was then bowled by an ab­solute beau­ty from pac­er Thomas Mayes for two to leave the in­nings in tat­ters at 31 for five.

Justin Greaves and Ros­ton Chase put on 40 runs to give hope of a pos­si­ble fight­back, un­til the for­mer was caught at slip for 35 off the bowl­ing of pac­er Josh Lit­tle.

West In­dies then had their best part­ner­ship, a 98-run stand be­tween Chase and Matthew Forde, as they tried to re­vive the chase.

Chase got to his sixth ODI half cen­tu­ry by sweep­ing spin­ner Andy McBrine to the bound­ary for four, but was de­ceived by an arm ball by spin­ner George Dock­rell to be bowled for 55 off 76 balls with four fours and two six­es.

The end came swift­ly there­after, with Dock­rell clean­ing up the tail by ac­count­ing for the wick­ets of Alzarri Joseph for a duck and Gu­dakesh Motie for eight, while Mc­Carthy dis­missed Forde for 38.

Mc­Carthy fin­ished with fig­ures of 4-32 while Dock­rell end­ed with 3-21.

CMC

Scores

IRE­LAND 303-6 in 50 overs (Andy Bal­birnie 112, Har­ry Tec­tor 56, Paul Stir­ling 54, Lor­can Tuck­er 30, Cade Carmichael 16; Matthew Forde 3-68, Alzarri Joseph 2-51).

WEST IN­DIES 179 in 34.1 overs (Ros­ton Chase 55, Matthew Forde 38, Justin Greaves 35, Bran­don King 19; Bar­ry Mc­Carthy 4-32, George Dock­rell 3-21).

Ire­land won by 124 runs.


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