da roleta： A beaming Cricket Ireland president, Basil McNamee, was among the dozensof delighted Irish fans awaiting their heroes at the team hotel inBangalore on Wednesday night
Siddarth Ravindran02-Mar-2011A beaming Cricket Ireland president, Basil McNamee, was among the dozensof delighted Irish fans awaiting their heroes at the team hotel inBangalore on Wednesday night, savouring “the best victory in Ireland’scricket history”. The stunning upset of England, their fiercest sportingrival, not only threw Group B wide open and injected excitement into along-drawn league phase that was expected to be boringly predictable, butalso brought into focus the ICC’s decision to shut out Associate nationsfrom the 2015 World Cup.”This win is just a dream come true,” McNamee told ESPNcricinfo. “It alsosends out a message that Associates can’t be taken for granted byeverybody, that we can surprise.” Ireland’s back-from-the-dead victorygives them a real chance of making it to the quarter-finals, with two winsfrom their remaining four matches likely to ensure their qualification.Ireland’s position was bleak after defeat in the opening game toBangladesh, and sliding to 111 for 5 against England. The resilience theyshowed in constructing the largest ever World Cup chase particularlypleased McNamee. “We were used to being defeated. So when victory comes, avictory against England, it’s absolutely wonderful,” he said. “Not onlythat, our boys played so well. It looked several times that we were goingto be second-best again but our boys dug in.”The travelling Ireland supporters had plenty of anxious moments in thetense chase, relief and joy finally taking over when John Mooney clipped aboundary to midwicket off the first ball of the final over. It was nearlytwo hours later that the Ireland team arrived at the hotel to a rousingreception from the already partying fans.William Porterfield and the rest of the side soaked in the applause andcheers from the fans who turned the lobby into a sea of green and white.”It was great to see so many of our supporters out here,” a composedPorterfield told ESPNcricinfo. “It was even better to give them somethingto cheer about.”Ireland broke a slew of records and charted new ground in their win -fastest World Cup century for Kevin O’Brien, biggest World Cup chase, andtheir first victory over England being the prominent ones – andPorterfield said the team hadn’t yet realised the enormity of theachievement. “We got to let this sink in still,” he said. “We’ve all grownup dreaming of moments like this in a World Cup, and we’re going to enjoythis time with our family and friends and have a couple of drinks.”It was the end of a day that he said “definitely eclipsed any Irishcricket has had” but even then he was not distracted from the task aheadfor Ireland. “We’ve got another four games left in the group, andhopefully we can give our fans something more to cheer about,” he said.”We’ve got to back this up in our next few performances and hopefullyqualify for the next stage.”