14 February - Cape Town - Ireland Coach Ed Joyce pre-match press conference
[Reporter]
The series win over Pakistan, we heard last November, a lot of any burn on tomorrow's match at all, do you think?
[Ed]
I think the fact that we've played them very recently is a good thing. We know what we're going to come up against, quite a spin-heavy attack, so we've got to be prepared for that. And yesterday, we could have played the spinners better, I think, so that's something we're talking about and focusing on for tomorrow. They're a very good team. Obviously, we had some success there in the T20 series, so that'll give us some confidence that we can turn them over. I think it'll be a good competitive game, and there were some things in the game yesterday that we can definitely take confidence from as well, so we'll be looking to bring that in tomorrow and try to put in an all-around performance.
[Reporter]
Have you seen the pitch yet in Cape Town? Is it going to be as spin-friendly as yesterday?
[Ed]
We haven't been down to the ground yet. We have training there this evening under lights to get used to the lights, so it'll be the first time we're doing that, so we're just going to have a look at the ground, get into the changing rooms and do some fielding. As I said, just get used to the ground and we'll have a look at the pitch then. They have had a game or two there already. We watched that on the telly and it didn't massively turn, but it looked like there was a bit of extra bounce there and the spinners definitely played a role, so we're expecting that to be a big part of the game just because of the make-up of Pakistan's team as well and they rely heavily on their spin attack, so we need to be prepared for that.
[Reporter]
You're obviously delighted the way Cara came into the match yesterday and bowled such a fine spell.
[Ed]
Yes, she was absolutely brilliant. She's worked so hard over a long period and I don't think she's got the results that she deserves with the way she's bowled in a lot of the games she's played, but that's the most consistent I've seen her and to do it on the biggest stage under huge pressure against a team like that was so impressive. It was great herself and Leah bowled really, really well through the middle there and dragged us back into the game after an indifferent power play for us with the ball, so obviously delighted for her and hopefully she continues that on from now on because she's got so much potential and she's worked really hard with Nathan, our spin bowling coach, who's done a lot of work with her and she's really bought into the things they've talked about and she's made huge progress, so hopefully she continues that over the rest of the group games.
[Reporter]
The other person I'd like to name is Orla. Obviously a fit Orla makes such a difference, doesn't she, with her bowling?
[Ed]
She does all-round. She's an excellent all-round cricketer. Obviously bats in the top three but also opens at bowling, so she's very valuable to us. She's a really, really good fielder as well, so it's the same sort of story with Orla. We need to make sure that we're looking after her in terms of the overs she bowls. With the injury issue, she can have if you over-bowl her, but this T20 World Cup, we've prepared for her to try and make sure that she's available to bowl four overs in every game if we need her, which is definitely the plan, and she seems to be going really well. She's a huge player for us and she did a great job with the new ball yesterday. England coming really, really hard there and she managed to pick up a very valuable wicket in Dunkley and I thought the rest of her balls were very tidy as well.
[Reporter]
Can I take you back to the Australia match? I haven't asked you yet. There's obviously a big argument going on. Do you think that was Ireland's greatest ever win by male or female team?
[Ed]
The only reason I would say no is because it was a warm-up game. Sometimes it's hard to gauge the readiness of both teams in that game. We took it incredibly seriously, as they did. You're playing 12, 13 players and there's a lot of rotation in terms of the players going on and off, but in terms of the way we played the game, I think I was really proud. The same as yesterday, really proud of the way we went out and kept going. I think we need to re-emphasize the fact that with the bat, you need to make sure that you start really well and I thought that was the thing I was happiest with in that game with the bat. I think that's the best bowling performance I've seen from an Irish women's team since I took over anyway. We were really, really tidy with the ball. That ground at Stellenbosch is very, very small. The wicket's very, very flat and to keep that Australian team to 160 odd was a great effort and obviously the chase was excellent as well. In a way, I felt like we actually could have won that game earlier if some of the earlier batters had stayed in, but it was great that the lower order won that game after having been so close against Sri Lanka. So it was a brilliant performance and I'm chuffed to get that confidence booster and I know we lost yesterday but a lot of the same style of play was in action.
[Reporter]
I know apart from the results yesterday, a bit disappointed from that point of view, but it must be very encouraging for you and the squad to have been so competitive against a top quality side like England's that you haven't played that often.
[Ed]
Yeah, I think that's very fair. I think we're looking at this World Cup, we want to be really, really competitive and we certainly go out there to win every single game that we want and we know that we've got a really competitive team and some excellent cricketers and it's just perhaps some of the other teams don't necessarily know that because we haven't played very much against them, but I think England would have been impressed with what they saw yesterday. Certainly I was really happy with the intent we showed with the bat all the way through. I think we could have been a little bit smarter with maybe some of the shots that we played, but I think the intent to score from ball one is something that we've really stressed and I'd like to see us keep doing. And then with the ball, again there was some untidy stuff, but there was some really, really high quality bowling in there as well. So delighted with some of it, obviously not particularly delighted with the result, but as you said, it's great that we're being as competitive as we are obviously in the warm-up games and then the first game yesterday, but definitely we want to win some games out here and I think that's the focus over the next three.
[Reporter]
Some topsy-turvy results in the competition so far, so that's obviously boosting your confidence as well, obviously you're concentrating on your own performance, but there are some variations in some of the results perhaps teams like New Zealand perhaps not doing as well and you know other teams like Sri Lanka coming forward as well, so it's turning into an interesting competition.
[Ed]
It is and that's always good for a World Cup is to have upsets, you don't want it to be a routine sort of, you know, who's going to win before you start, that's certainly not what you want and I think that's something that people here have been, you know, pretty happy about. I know New Zealand obviously be gutted about the performances they put in, but that can happen in T20 cricket, you know, the wickets have taken a little bit of spin and they've been fine to play on, but they have been tricky and some of the bowling has been really top quality, and then to see Sri Lanka do so well in that first game as well, fair play to them, they're doing really well, so hopefully we can continue that trend and get a few upset wins in the next few, but you know, it wouldn't be an upset for us, but maybe for some of the other nations, they wouldn't be expecting us to do so well, so we're hopeful of us, as I said, getting a few wins in these last three games and see where we end up at the end.
[Reporter]
First of all, very hard luck for the various games and you have a very important game against Pakistan tomorrow. If we talk about the Pakistani game against India, Asha played one of the wonderful innings against India and with a strike rate of 170 plus, do you have any special planning, how to stop the Asha in the coming game?
[Ed]
I think the best way would be to get her out very early. She's a huge talent and obviously can hit the ball a long way, which you don't see that often in women's cricket, so yeah, definitely have a few plans for her. Obviously, we played against Pakistan very recently in November in both ODIs and T20 series and Ayesha played in the T20 series and she was brilliant in the second game and was a big part of Pakistan winning that game. We managed to get her out twice in the other two, so that's obviously a huge player for Pakistan. So I'm not going to give anything away, but we know she hits very, very well straight down the ground, so we have to try and avoid giving width so that she can free her arms there. So we have a few plans in place, but it's whether they actually come off and then it's also about whether you take the catches that are given because when she hits the ball, it tends to go either a long way in the air or hit very hard, so I think we need to focus on that maybe when we're doing our fielding practice under lights later.
[Reporter]
After yesterday, Pakistan probably will come at you with spin pretty early as well. Just wondering, does any game plan or shot selection change after England's success yesterday?
[Ed]
Well, they did the same thing in - They're very reliant on their spin-balling attack. They have some good seamers for sure, but they'll probably bring three or four spinners against us and I think that's a tactic that's working against every team in this tournament. So, you know, we have to be prepared for that, but it's that they did exactly the same thing in Pakistan in November and we dealt with that pretty well. So, you know, we played a lot of sweep shots yesterday and I think England tried to as well and that potentially wasn't something that worked particularly well on the wicket in Parle, but obviously we're at Cape Town tomorrow, so we'll have a look at the pitch and see what we think there in terms of the way to go about playing, but as I said, we've had some success recently against Pakistan and they bowled a lot of spin in the power play against us then as well, so hopefully we can just continue on the way we did in that and obviously Pakistan's spinners are very good, but Sophie Eccleston's one of the best bowlers, not the best bowler in the world, so we always knew she was going to be a challenge for us, but yeah, we know what we're going to come up against, it's just whether we can actually go out there and execute the way we want to bat against it.
[Reporter]
You talked about sweeping there, was that a case of the wicket or was that a case of maybe probably targeting the wrong side considering it was much shorter straight and square?
[Ed]
It wasn't much shorter straight, it wasn't that much shorter, but I think it was probably usually when the sweep shot isn't working it's more to do with the pitch that you're playing on, so that was interesting because it didn't look like particularly any reason why it wouldn't work, but you know, you saw maybe Heather Knight who's one of the best bowlers of the ball in the world and she struggled as well and you know Gabby missed a few as well, she's a brilliant player of the sweep shot as well, so it was interesting to see that that wasn't necessarily the way to go about it and potentially we should have hit a bit straighter, but it's easy to say that after the fact, you know that the sweep shot's a massive, massive shot in limited overs cricket and in women's cricket in general and it's something we've spent a lot of time working on, so I don't think we should put it away, we certainly need to be able to play it if the opportunity arises. It's just potentially maybe seeing earlier on whether the pitch is allowing you to play that and if not then maybe targeting straight a bit more which some of our players did pretty well and it's just well I said we'll have a look at the pitch later and make a decision on how we want to go about playing.
[Reporter]
Does that reading of the pitch come into the toss at all? Maybe if batting second gives you that bit of extra time to make that decision?
[Ed]
Yeah potentially you know under pressure a lot of the teams would like to bat first but I think that's sort of certainly in the past anyway but I think in this World Cup teams I've been pretty happy to bat second albeit it looks you know obviously the way New Zealand have had some tough results and you know they've been chasing so I think that might come into it as well and yeah the pitch always comes into the toss and whether you think it's going to deteriorate over time it's obviously the second game in a day as well on the same pitch. We're under lights for the first time which we haven't played a lot of cricket you know apart from the qualifiers in Abu Dhabi under so we're going to have a field under the lights as well and see how that goes but it's the pitch isn't pretty good and I can't see it changing massively it's just whether we can we can bat well enough and bowl well enough under pressure.
[Reporter]
I want to ask you about morale in the camp. When you consider what the Irish team have gone through, the women's team gone through over the years when they got huge –[inaudible] put a 400 one day international and so whatever they seem to be buying into what you're preaching. Are you finding that and that the morale of the camp is it's better than I've seen it anyway but obviously you're closing.
[Ed]
I would say morale has always been high in the camp to be perfectly honest John I think you know it's a great group it's a really young group in general with some senior players sprinkled in there but you know the morale and confidence are pretty high with the way we've played especially our T20 cricket over the last 12 to 18 months I think we have the team has really performed well and you know we've got - it's not just myself here the whole management group and leadership group within the team sort of want to play the cricket in a certain way and I think you know we realize to compete with the top teams we have to go about it in a certain way and we'll learn much quicker by doing that so especially with the bat you know by our bowling and fielding you know you it's about being as consistent as possible and being as athletic as possible and really practicing those catches and stuff like that and the diving stops and put a real focus on that. With the bat you have to take the game on because if you don't against these top teams you just won't go anywhere so it's about trying to get that and we possibly got. I love the way we went about yesterday but I think it was you know I think maybe being a little bit smarter about the about the types of shots we play would be good for the for the next three games.
[Reporter]
But I'm just saying some of your squad buying into your philosophy we've seen down the years that some coaches have basically moaned about the fact that they weren't get the backup from cricket Ireland whatever and didn't really concentrate I thought on getting the team together as a group how have you been able to manage that?
[Ed]
There's been no issues with cricket Ireland, myself and the coaches and leadership group have made a decision about the way we want to go about playing our cricket and I think that's a really exciting thing because you know we get to decide what that is and I think it's an exciting brand and it's all very well playing that that way you have to have the players you can go out and do that and I think we do have some excellent cricketers so we feel like that's actually something that's going to work over time and that the players will improve to the point of being able to compete with the top teams really consistently in years to come so you know we're excited about the way we're going about cricket but we definitely want to go out there and win some games as well so it's not just about the way we want to play we also want to be competitive and win and I think we will be pretty disappointed over the next three games if we don't get that first T20 World Cup win and if not a couple and as I said see where we end up at the end of the group stages and Richard our performance director is out here with us and I'm really enjoying the way we're playing as well.
[Reporter]
I watched the game - looked like they were going to ease the way to victory but you must be very happy the way you responded towards the end of the innings obviously there wasn't enough runs on the board but they never gave up fighting.
[Ed]
No the girls were great from the seventh over to the 14th over we were really really excellent you know and people can say that England were throwing the bat and having a go but I think they would do that against anyone in any situation. They've made a clear decision to go out and try and play the cricket in a certain way as well and you have to bowl very very well to stop them doing that again. And Cara was absolutely brilliant with the ball - best I have seen her bowl and hopefully she continues on with that so consistent bowling you know bowling legs then which is very, very tricky to bowl. Leah backed her up from the other end and the seamers all did a really good job through the middle there especially Arlene and Laura so I thought that was great. Laura was brilliant up top as well, Jane has been fantastic for us but just caught on the end by Alice there – she is a quality player and I know he was pretty disappointed about the way she bowled but she's a quality cricketer and she'll be back as well so I was chuffed about the character that was shown because it could easily have sort of dropped the heads and lost that game in nine or ten overs instead we kept throwing punches you know they lost six wickets, we have players who've got a lot of confidence going to that next game and that's all because we kept going and that's obviously part of a successful team as well.
