Ireland beat West Indies to advance in the T20 World Cup (Picture: Getty)
West Indies captain Nicholas Pooran says his team are ‘hurting’ after they crashed out of the T20 World Cup before the group stage.
In a winner-take-all final match of qualifying, two-time champions West Indies were restricted to 146-5 as Gareth Delany took 3/16 from four overs.
Ireland coasted to the total with nine wickets and 15 balls to spare as Paul Stirling made 66, skipper Andrew Balbirnie smashed 37 from 23 and Lorcan Tucker scored 45.
West Indies are the only team to win more than one T20 World Cup but have been dumped out in Australia after losing two of their three qualifying games.
Pooran said: ‘It’s really tough. We haven’t batted well enough throughout the tournament and on a really good batting surface, 145 was always going to be a really tough challenge to ask our bowlers to defend.
‘I want to say congratulations to Ireland, they batted and bowled fantastically today.
‘There are positives to take, Brandon King is batting wonderfully and Alzarri Joseph always steps up for us with the ball which is nice to see.
‘This is a learning experience for us, we are really disappointed and we know our fans will be disappointed back home.
‘We’re definitely hurting, I’m disappointed in myself and how it has gone but we will live to fight another day.’
Ireland will join the likes of hosts Australia, England, India and Pakistan in the Super 12 stage, although their exact destination is yet to be confirmed.
Balbirnie said: ‘This means everything to us. We were so disappointed to miss out at this stage last year, so we had to do a lot of thinking and make a lot of changes back home.
‘We set out some things we wanted to achieve as a team and how we wanted to play. And here, we lost our first game but to then come back and beat two-time champions in a must-win game, I could not be prouder.
‘It was an emotional finish, we are absolutely delighted. We want to test ourselves against the best in the world and who knows where that can take us? It is a really proud day for Ireland.’
More to follow…
Ireland are through to the Super 12 stage.