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Ahead of the important Pool B match with Zimbabwe on Saturday morning, www.cricketireland.ie spoke to Ed Joyce to get his view on performances so far and the match with Zimbabwe.
Speaking in Hobart after the team had trained on the field at the Bellerive Oval, Joyce was confident that the match would be competitive and exciting to watch.

“Zimbabwe are a good team and probably on a level with us I think, we’ve had some good games against them in the past few years, in the Twenty20 qualifier last year we had really close game against them.

“I think it’s pretty even stevens and hard to call. It’s a good wicket out there, and this ground’s a lot smaller than I remember from the last time I was playing here so I think it should be a high scoring game and hopefully a good one.”

After two wins from two at the start of the tournament Ireland lost to South Africa earlier this week, but Joyce is still very happy with how things are going so far in the tournament for Ireland.

“I think [it’s going] a bit better than expected, I don’t think many people would have given us a chance to beat the West Indies, obviously we did, but not many people watching would have so it’s gone very well to be honest with you.

“Disappointing loss against South Africa, but it was a very difficult game, I think the toss was pretty big in that game, obviously not 200 runs worth, but we would have batted first and hopefully we would have got a good score on the board, and I think it was a little bit harder batting second.”

With focus well and truly turned to the Zimbabwe game on Saturday, Joyce is well aware of the threat their opening bowlers pose to Ireland.

“They’ve got two good bowlers up top, I think Chatara has bowled really well for them and got wickets up front in most games and Panyangara has bowled well as well.

“We’re going to have to play well at the top to get through those two new balls and if we do we have a really good chance of getting a good score judging by the last few games, but we’re pretty weary of that first 10-15 overs.”

One potential positive for Ireland is that Zimbabwe skipper Elton Chigumbura looks set to miss the match with a muscle injury picked up in the defeat to Pakistan.

“He’s a really good player to come in at seven or eight for them, he gives it a real good crack and he’s very dangerous down the bottom order, you’ve never got the game won if he still hasn’t batted so that’s a big loss as obviously he’s their captain as well.”

Ireland’s fourth group match will start at 3.30am GMT on Saturday morning and you will be able to follow coverage live on www.cricketireland.ie as well as joining the conversation using the #BackingGreen hashtag on twitter.

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