In the middle of the night, that opportunity was there with Ireland 25 for five in reply to a middling 179. By the end of the night it had slipped away, with young Irish wicketkeeper Lorcan Tucker playing an impeccable class to score 71 not out Ireland reach 137: not a winning total, but enough to leave a mark on Australia’s campaign. The first stick in the rays for the home side was that Ireland won the toss and elected to bowl, as pushing the run-rate is more possible when chasing a small target quickly while batting first requires a huge total to defend. The second bat was the opening batting – so long a power point, with Aaron Finch and David Warner combining for more than 1,700 T20 runs over the course of a decade. Recent times have been tough, though, and Warner fell quickly as he has every time in this tournament, cutting Barry McCarthy’s first ball at short fine leg for three. Finch got off to a better start than his long and frustrating night against Sri Lanka last Tuesday, hitting a massive six early on, but his innings still reached 40 off 36 balls before some late strikes took him to 63, caught in boundaries to give McCarthy his third. Mitchell Marsh, meanwhile, has had some clean hits at 28, and looks to have the goods to produce another World Cup special at some point, but he has been singled out by McCarthy. Glenn Maxwell had a typically frenzied finish against leg-spinner Gareth Delaney: he came out fat and flipping it, not pounding it and surviving a review, missing free games outside leg-stump before blasting a better ball to target. But it was another quick innings was too short, lured wide by the pace of Josh Little to give Tucker a second catch behind. Ireland’s Barry McCarthy will compete at the Gabba. Photo: Darren England/EPA That left Marcus Stoinis to pick up where he had left off in Perth, with a straight hitting clinic. The note to keep him away from the spinners had slipped under the wrong door as he laced four and dropped a six off Delany, although he was hardly less punishing to seamer Mark Adair, delivering a straight drive worthy of the label “tracer bullet “. , then hitting so big that only airborne stunts from McCarthy prevented it from clearing the rope. He enjoyed his luck with two attempted catches at deep cover until he drove Little into the arms of backward point in the 19th over. Tim David and Matthew Wade did a job, but the final score still felt out of place. It looked more like it when Andrew Balbirnie pulled Josh Hazlewood for six at fine leg and Paul Stirling hit a monster pick-up shot from Pat Cummins into the midwicket crowd. But 17 off the first nine deliveries gave way to five wickets for seven runs in 13 balls. Balbirnie went too far, tried the unorthodox method of playing Cummins outside his off stump and missed all three stumps. The Powerplay introduction of Maxwell’s off-spin was a masterpiece: Stirling drove him to mid-wicket, Harry Tector pulled him to midwicket. Mitchell Starc followed a maiden drive, full and quick and swinging to break the stumps of Curtis Kampfer and George Dockrell. Australia’s Pat Cummins (right) celebrates with Aston Agar (left) after beating Ireland’s Paul Stirling. Photo: Darren England/AAP Ireland were 25 for five, and keeping them below 80 would have taken Australia’s run rate ahead of England’s. The small sample size of matches means that the measure is unstable. It equally meant that Tucker was able to spoil Australia’s designs, dominating productive partnerships with Delany, Adair and McCarthy and expanding his ambitions as he went along. He was particularly tough on Starc, taking seven boundaries off him, including a superbly threaded drive with extra cover and a gutsy ramp. He also beat Hazlewood in the second tier at the Gabba. For a moment victory was an unlikely possibility when Ireland needed 44 from the last three overs. But McCarthy was caught in the deep off Cummins, and last batsman Josh Little was unable to bring Tucker back on strike, eventually being run out in the effort. Australia took the two points but at the cost of injuries, with David and Finch citing hamstring concerns and Stoinis with his history of side strains leaving the field after bowling. Australia’s final group game is against Afghanistan on Friday and again a big difference will be the goal. The run-rate calculations could be nullified if New Zealand beat England on Tuesday, but either way this scrappy Australian campaign still has a lot of work to do.
