‘It’s pretty hard to take’ – William Porterfield

William Porterfield, the Ireland captain, was understandably downbeat after his side was denied a spot at the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 following a five-wicket loss to Afghanistan, with just five balls remaining, in Harare on Friday 23 March.

Admitting that “it’s pretty hard to take”, the 33-year-old rued the fact that Ireland were just “a couple of big partnerships” away from winning the final Super Sixes match of the ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifier 2018, which would have given them, and not Afghanistan, a place at the marquee event.

“Coming so close yet so far, you’re talking a difference of margins within the game. It’s pretty hard to take, obviously,” he said. “Start of the week, when we bounced back against Scotland, we did well. We needed a few things to go our way this week, and they didn’t. We prepared, and we were ready for this game, but didn’t come out on the right side.”

After opting to bat, Ireland were restricted to 209/7, the runs coming thanks largely to Paul Stirling’s 87-ball 55 and Kevin O’Brien's 37-ball 41 late in the innings. Porterfield admitted it was a slow and difficult pitch to bat on, but wished the top-order batsmen, himself included, had put a bigger price on their wickets.

“Partly yes, but I thought we played pretty well,” he said when asked if there weren’t enough runs on the board. “We knew it was going to be quite a slow wicket, and obviously it was going to give assistance to a couple of their lads. But two-three of the first four wickets, could have made it a little harder for (Afghanistan). That’s probably disappointing, starting off on my own with the first dismissal.

“If we’d got a couple of partnerships and set it up for the back end … it was never going to be easy doing it on that pitch, but we set it up decently to a large extent, and a couple of big partnerships with 15-25 runs more would have made the difference in the end.”

What Ireland were unable to do, Afghanistan did in style. Mohammad Shahzad’s 50-ball 54 and his 86-run opening stand with Gulbaldin Naib ensured the middle-order had enough of a platform to build on. Asghar Stanikzai, the captain, then hit a cool 29-ball 39 amid all the tension to help see the chase through.

Porterfield felt his bowlers had allowed the Afghan batsmen to find their feet. “We let them settle for too long, and then, they’re that kind of batting line-up. They can explode at any time and take someone down,” he said. “Shahzi (Shahzad) got them off to a bit of a start and that helped them a lot. We clawed back a lot in the middle – it would have been easy to give up at that point, so it was a great fightback. But fair play to him, and how he went about the chase. They set up that platform for them, and that made it a lot easier coming down the back end.”

Apart from the disappointment at losing out on the World Cup spot by such a thin margin, the Ireland players had to cope with it all, knowing that some of their own had been on the other side of the fence.

Phil Simmons, the Afghanistan coach, was formerly Ireland’s gaffer for as long as eight years, while John Mooney, the former Ireland all-rounder, is currently Afghanistan’s fielding coach.

The reunion in the middle was emotional.“It’s the business we’re in, it’s a professional environment,” Porterfield said. “Fair play to the two of them. Simmons had a long eight years with us, and Mooners had a great playing career with us. Coming off, we shook hands, and Mooners was a bit emotional as well. It was probably hard for him. I know if I was sitting on the other side of the fence, I would find that hard to take. As I said, it’s a professional environment.”

Ireland will now regroup, and look to fine-tune preparations ahead of their first ever Test, against Pakistan in May.