Ireland registered a comfortable win by 64 runs against a Zimbabwean side that had no clue about Mark Adair’s bowling as he claimed his career-best figures of 4-23 to restrict the African side to 110-9 in their 175 run chase, thereby handing his team an all-important victory which put them in the driver’s seat in the series. With this win at the Bready Cricket Club Ground, the Irish team took an unassailable 3-1 lead in the five-match T20I series.
The Zimbabwean chase never looked like going anywhere as they kept losing wickets at regular intervals. Regis Chakabva who looked good till his short stay was unconvinced by the umpire’s decision to give him out after the ball was caught behind the wickets by Neil Rock of the bowling of Adair.
Skipper Craig Ervine top-scored for the men in red with 28 from 30 balls. Luke Jongwe and Richard Ngarava were the other two batters to get into the double digits, remaining unbeaten with scores of 24 and 11 respectively.
Apart from Adair, Shane Getkate picked two wickets while Simi Singh, Barry McCarthy and Craig Young picked one each.
Earlier in the day, after being sent in to beat first, Ireland rode on the back of some brilliant innings by Kevin O’Brien (47), Paul Stirling (39) and skipper Andrew Balbirnie (36) to post 174 for the loss of only four wickets in their 20 overs. Left-arm spinner Wellington Masakadza took two wickets while Jongwe and Ngarava bagged one wicket each.
The two teams will now collide in the final T20I at the same venue on September 05 before moving to Belfast for the ODI series.