Ireland holds their nerves to a last over victory against Zimbabwe - The 30th match of the World Cup was a match between two Pool B teams that is Ireland and Zimbabwe. The Pool has been in a great fix as fight for the top 4 was heating up. In this match a win for Ireland would help their cause for reaching the Quarters of the world cup while a win for Zimbabwe would open the last spot wide open. In this match after winning the toss Zimbabwe decided to field first.
Ireland while batting first got off to a slow but solid start. The top three batsmen scored 79 runs in 21st over. William Porterfield and Paul Stirling were the two batsmen that fell in 21st over. Later Ed Joyce and Andy Balbirnie built the innings well. They together took the team to a score of 217 runs in 39th over of the game. It was here when Ed Joyce lost his wicket after scoring 112 runs while Balbirine scored 97 runs and got run out. The team was successful in posting a score of 331 runs as the middle order collapsed drastically and lost the momentum. Tendai Chatara and Sean Williams took 3 wickets each in the match and stopped Ireland from getting away with the match easily.
The Zimbabwe innings started off poorly as they lost many wickets up early. Chamu Chibhabha and Sikandar Raza the opener of the team lost their wickets after scoring only 18 and 12 runs respectively. Solomon Mire and Hamilton Masakadza list his wicket after scoring 11 and 5 runs respectively. The team was struggling at 74/4 in 17th over of the game. Brendan Taylor and Sean Williams together partnered and took the team closer to the win. Taylor scored 121 runs while Williams scored 96 runs. The match seemed to be in the hands of Ireland but Tawanda Mupariwa changed the course with 7 balls 18 runs still they were unable to win the game with 7 runs in the last over. Ireland struck twice in the last over to complete the win and reach to the striking distance from that of top 4 in Pool B. Ed Joyce was named as the man of the match for his superb batting.