Ireland downs England in World Cup shock !!
Kevin O'Brien smashed the fastest ever World Cup century to propel Ireland to a stunning three-wicket win over England in a Group B match in Bangalore overnight.
An astonishing knock by O'Brien, who clobbered 13 fours and 6 sixes
to reach three figures in only 50 balls, helped the Irish to live up to
their reputation as giant-killers as they overhauled England's total of 8
for 327 with five balls to spare.
It was the highest successful run chase in the tournament.
O'Brien came to the crease with almost half his side back in the pavilion with Ireland struggling on 4 for 106 in the 23rd over.
He then turned on a breathtaking show of power hitting while the M Chinnaswamy Stadium roared him on.
Inspired by O'Brien, Alex Cusack smashed 47 runs as they put on 162
runs for the sixth wicket before he was run out with Ireland still
requiring 55 runs to win.
However, O'Brien soldiered on and no amount of bowling changes or
field placings could stop him and England came loose at the seams with
misfields and dropped catches aiding Ireland's chase.
Four years after beating Pakistan in the group stage in the
Caribbean, the Irish repeated the feat to dent England's hopes of
progressing into the knockout stages of the 2011 tournament.
"When you are 111-5 I just said to myself, we could just potter
around and get 220 off 50 overs for eight or nine and the game would
have been pretty boring to watch and it wouldn't have been anything to
watch on TV," a grinning O'Brien said clutching his man of the match
trophy.
"I just chanced my arm and said I'm going to be as positive as I can and I got a few away and didn't look back really.
"It's probably the best innings I've ever played. I just hit the ball
pretty well and got a bit of luck and things went my way. I just kept
going and kept attacking."
The 26-year-old O'Brien dismantled the English bowling to score 113
runs from 63 balls and his knock helped produce the first upset in this
year's showpiece.
He was run out with 11 runs still required off as many balls.
However, John Mooney (33 off 30 balls) kept his head and with three
required to win off the last over, smashed a boundary to spark off the
Irish celebrations.
Having only narrowly beaten the Netherlands, England's remaining
matches are against West Indies, Bangladesh and South Africa and skipper
Andrew Strauss admitted that there is no margin for error if they are
to go through to the next round.
"It was a great performance from Ireland. I'm not going to take
anything away from them. They thoroughly deserved their victory. We've
got to go away, lick our wounds and make sure we come back and play
better," he said.
"The game coming up against South Africa (on Sunday) is a huge one for us.
"Generally we bounce back well from defeat in the past whether it's
in Test cricket or one-day cricket and we are going to have to do that
very quickly and probably be very honest with each other and realise
where we can improve and make those improvements very quickly."
Strauss admitted that bowling on the flat sub-continent pitches was
always going to be difficult, but flayed his bowlers for the way they
have conceded most of those runs.
"What we don't want to be doing is haemorrhaging both sides of the
wickets and kind of chasing our tails too much which potentially we have
done in the last three games," Strauss said.
Ireland captain William Porterfield, who saw his side squander a
winning position in their opening match against Bangladesh, hailed the
"greatest" day for Irish cricket.
"We believed in ourselves. We had a bit of an upset the other night
when we should have knocked off 200 against Bangladesh but to bounce
back the way that the lads have bounced back, especially after losing a
few early wickets," he said.
"We've still got four games left in this tournament so we'll be
looking to put in a performance like that every game and you never know
from there. We've still got a great chance of qualifying for the second
phase.
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