New Delhi, July 15 (IANS) There are moments in cricket that do not announce themselves with the roar of a crowd or the shatter of stumps. Instead, they arrive in quiet, seismic shifts of belief in a dressing room long before the first ball is even bowled. For Orla Prendergast and her Ireland team, that defining moment of belief came on June 26, just 24 hours ahead of their final Women’s T20 World Cup group fixture against the formidable West Indies.
Huddled together, they watched with sheer joy as their male counterparts orchestrated a staggering, 34-run heist against heavyweights India in Belfast. In that singular piece of epic cricketing theatre, the women’s team pondered with renewed belief – if the men could dismantle the reigning T20 World Cup champions, why not them?
What followed on Saturday in Bristol was nothing short of a fairytale – Ireland hunted down 129 to script an astonishing six-wicket victory over West Indies, the 2016 champions. Five tournaments and 22 agonising defeats later, Ireland finally tasted victory in the T20 World Cup.
“We were all watching it the day before our game. For them to turn over the best T20I side in the world, it was just great to watch. I mean it was unbelievable and it just reiterated that any team can beat anyone on their day and so I think it just injected a lot of confidence and belief into us. I’m sure they had the belief that they were going to win that game, but I doubt many other people in the world of cricket thought they were going to do it.
“It just proved that anyone can beat anyone and it definitely gave us that belief going into the next day and then thankfully they backed it up again with a series win on Sunday. So just an unbelievable weekend for Irish cricket and showed how much Irish cricket has grown on the global stage and that we can beat so many of those teams ranked above us,” Orla told IANS on the sidelines of Ireland’s ongoing ODI series against West Indies.
The wait for getting a World Cup victory became heavier for Ireland with every passing fixture, more so once Scotland beat them to get their own first win earlier in the tournament. “It definitely felt like a bit of a monkey on our back.
“We obviously saw Scotland get their first World Cup win against us, unfortunately, and different teams were performing really well and our tournament hadn’t quite come together yet at that point. But just the belief to get it was massive for us,” added Orla.
That belief, she insists, never wavered – even after the near-miss against defending champions New Zealand. “We came into the tournament with a lot of belief that we would win at least one game, and if not a few. We had a lot of belief that we definitely had multiple wins in us.
“We competed really well against New Zealand – they’re obviously a really quality side. So we played really well against them and we definitely should have won that game. There’s confidence to be taken from it, but there was a lot of heartbreak involved too, that we’d really lost a massive chance to turn them over.
“But confidence was definitely taken from it, and you could see that with the way we carried on in the tournament. We didn’t put our best showing out against Sri Lanka in our first game in Bristol, but then we bounced back really well against the West Indies,” she said.
Beyond the points table, the World Cup also brought individual recognition for Orla – of making the cut for the T20 World Cup for the second straight time after the 2023 edition, where she was the 12th player. For someone highly cited as one of the best pace-bowling all-rounders in the T20 circuit, the recognition is something she doesn’t take lightly.
“Definitely feels like a big personal achievement to be listed amongst some of those names on that team is a massive honour. When you look through that list – it’s some of the best players in the world. So to be listed there and amongst them is just a huge privilege.
“It’s not something you ever expect coming out of a tournament and especially when unfortunately it didn’t go as well as we’d hoped. We didn’t win as many games as we’d hoped and so on a team level, you come out with a little bit of disappointment and you feel like you could have done more. But then to receive personal recognition like that, it’s definitely pleasing,” she said.
Confidence heading into the tournament was also kept steady by Ireland’s showing in the tri-series featuring Pakistan and West Indies ahead of the World Cup. “You always go into World Cups with a bit of an unknown, coming up against the best teams in the world.
“We had the tri-series before, which thankfully went pretty well – we got a couple of wins against Pakistan and West Indies. So confidence as a team as a whole was high, and personally I had a couple of good performances that I could lean on coming into the World Cup and trust my skills.”
In her match-winning 63 against the West Indies, Orla was cutting and hooking at will against pace. It is also illustrated by the fact that Orla scored 45 runs from cut shots during the group stage, nearly 20 more than any other batter in the tournament.
Asked if that back-foot dominance was something she specifically worked on, or was it just pure instinct at that moment, Orla described it as a blend of instinct and hard-earned technical work.
“It’s a bit of both to be honest – it’s definitely instincts and out on the pitch. I naturally love to cut and pull a lot, definitely versus spin. But on the flip side of that, I have worked a lot on the cut shot – it’s something that I struggled in years gone by where I felt like if a spinner bowled outside off to me, I probably would hit to point a lot of the time.
“So I did a lot of work on sitting back and either whacking it in front of point or behind point. You do a lot of work, but then you kind of forget about it when the game’s come around – you obviously lean back on after a game, you can look back on the work you’ve done.
“But when you’re in the moment, it’s just relying on your instincts and what your body kind of tells you to do and so I definitely would look back on some balls that I probably felt I probably should have gone forward to and I was on the back foot. But I mean luckily it came off a little bit in the World Cup.”
Sharpening that game happens back home, at Ireland’s outdoor training base in Blanchardstown, Dublin. Turning to the ongoing ODI series against West Indies, which Ireland have lost and will look to sign off with a win in the final game later on Wednesday, Orla was candid about where their process has fallen short.
“We’ve gone wrong on the bowling side of things and to be perfectly honest, we’ve batted pretty well. It’s been that there have been nice batting pitches – even if a little bit slow and we’ve put together two pretty good totals setting and batting first. Maybe would have liked a few more in each game but definitely not far off and definitely two defendable totals if we bowled better.
“Getting through their top order has obviously been a challenge for us. We’ve seen just how high quality of their Hayley Matthews is two games in a row now which is pretty unfortunate. So I mean a good start would be getting her out and we’ve obviously had a look at her and we’re always putting together plans to get other teams best players out.
“So that’ll be just another case of doing that for bouncing back and we’ve bowled well in patches, but just not well enough for long enough and we can probably be better at the new ball and a little bit more challenging there and then maybe a little more bit more containing in the middle overs and I don’t think we’re far off – in fact we’ve batted really well for a good start. But it’s just a case of consistency with the ball that we’ll be looking to grow on.”
She pointed to two clear metrics Ireland are chasing in the final game apart from winning – bowling a tighter, more consistent length and more batting partnerships. “Something we speak about a lot is bowling a four-to-six-metre length – it’s probably not rocket science, but our stats have definitely shown that’s where we need to be a lot of the time.
“On the batting front it’s a little more simple – the partnerships. There’s a glaring difference in an innings when big players get big scores and build big partnerships with those around them, and in the innings where they don’t do it.”
Looking ahead, Orla also made the case for more regular cricket among Europe’s other cricketing nations. “A tri-series between us, Scotland and Holland would be a really good starting point. We’re three sides that have played a lot against each other, and it would make for a really interesting competition and great prep going into hopefully more World Cups, and hopefully a few less qualifiers if we can begin to automatically qualify,” she signed off.
Fans can watch Ireland vs West Indies third women’s ODI exclusively on FanCode.
–IANS
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