Ireland captain Andy Balbirnie steered the stress is on West Indies forward of their crunch T20 World Cup showdown at Hobart on Friday.
The Windies are the one facet to have received this match greater than as soon as – in 2012 and 2016 – however face an ignominious first-round exit if they don’t emerge victorious towards Ireland.
Each of the 4 groups in Group B are on two factors – which suggests Scotland versus Zimbabwe can be a winner-takes-all conflict – and Balbirnie believes all of the expectation will likely be on the Windies’ shoulders.
By distinction, Balbirnie feels Ireland rebounding from defeat to Zimbabwe by beating Scotland earlier this week has given them contemporary perception that they will go on to safe a spot in the primary Super 12s stage.
“There’s obviously a lot of pressure on the West Indies, coming in as group favourites,” he stated. “They’re going to be expected to win, a lot of people are going to be expecting them to win.
“They’ve won the competition twice, they’ve got some hugely experienced T20 players. But we’re a good team in our right, too, we’ve played some pretty good cricket.
“There’s some real confidence in the group after (beating Scotland), that was just really special to be there and be a part of and have friends and family there, it’s just lifted the group even further.
“It’ll be disappointing if we couldn’t back it up because if we don’t we’ll be on the plane on Saturday. Hopefully we can produce something special.”
Having slipped to a 31-run defeat to Zimbabwe of their opener, Ireland have been gazing elimination after lurching to 61 for 4 in pursuit of 177 towards Scotland, who had earlier surprised the Windies.
But an unbroken 119-run partnership between Curtis Campher and George Dockrell secured a priceless six-wicket triumph for the Irish as they lived to battle one other day.
They might be fairly assured heading to the Bellerive Oval, having claimed a well-known 2-1 victory in an ODI sequence over the Windies within the Caribbean in January.
“The beauty of this team is we never really feel out of the game, particularly with our batting. I think that showed (against Scotland),” Balbirnie stated.
“The confidence in the group has showed over the last eight to 10 months, we don’t go out and fear any team anymore, that’s gone out of our mindset.
“Sometimes a team might be more skilful than us on the day and that probably showed against Zimbabwe but there’s definitely no fear of any opposition when we go into a game.”
Source: www.unbiased.co.uk