After back-to-back defeats against India and Canada in the T20 World Cup 2024, Ireland captain Paul Stirling is still confident that his can defeat Pakistan and the USA in their next group games.
Talking in the post-match presentation as Canada defeated Ireland by 12 runs at the Nassau County International Cricket Stadium, Stirling stated that they still have two more big games to go in the group stage of the T20 World Cup 2024 against Pakistan and USA and they can certainly win those games.
"We've got two huge games," he said. "Still massive every time you put on the shirt you want to go and win, but no reason why we can't go and beat USA and Pakistan. We need to play a hell of a lot better if we're going to want to do that. But different conditions, we know them slightly better and will certainly be given it as best a crack as we can.
He lamented that they didn’t play their best cricket in the last two games and if they don’t play the best according to their abilities they are going to lose matches.
"I think we just want to play as good cricket as we possibly can. I've sort of hammered for at least the last year that if we don't play our best cricket, we will not win games of cricket. So, we need to get back to our best for next week,” the Irish skipper added.
As for the unexpected defeat against Canada, Stirling says that Canada simply played better than Ireland and won the match, "They played better cricket than us for three hours and they won the game, simple as that. That doesn't really, for me, matter what their tagline is, associate or full member or what, they just played smarter cricket, better cricket all day than us and they won."
Ireland is scheduled to play the USA on June 14 at the Central Broward Park & Broward County Stadium in Florida. They will then face Pakistan on June 16 at the same venue in Florida in the T20 World Cup 2024.
Ireland recently defeated Pakistan in the first of the three-match T20I series in May, making history as it was the first time they defeated Pakistan in T20I cricket.
- Paul Stirling
