The T20 World Championship’s countdown has started and most of the teams have started to reach Bangladesh including the Ireland and Nepal, who will be making their T20 World Cup debut in the qualifying stage.
Ireland are capable of making upsets in the bigger events but skipper William Porterfield said at a press conference yesterday that Zimbabwe and Bangladesh are the favourites to qualify, though he was also hopeful about his team’s prospects.
“As you know, T20 is a different format of the game where anything is possible but our main focus would be to qualify for the main round but we have to play to our potentials and we are keeping our chances and looking forward to play good cricket,” said Porterfield, adding that although the two Test playing nations were the favourites, anything could happen on a given day.
Meanwhile, Irish all-rounder Paul Stirling is confident of winning their first match in the qualifying round against Zimbabwe in the group B encounter and looking forward to the next stage, “Our focus would be the match against Zimbabwe next week and then against the associate members UAE and Holland so three big matches down the line, so look forward to that,” said Stirling.
Ireland have previously won games against Bangladesh and England in big events and Stirling was confident they could repeat such a result again.
The Irish side recently had a terrific outing in the West Indies where they managed to beat the West Indian side by six wickets in the three match series last month and Stirling informed that they had enough preparations before coming on to the mega event. The right handed batsman, who has a strike rate of 125.06 in the shortest format of the game, informed that their big hitter Kevin O’Brian and captain William Porterfield will be the key players for their side, “We look up to big Kevin O’Brian, he is a big hitter and played the super innings against England. He is our match winner and he can do it with the ball as well. I think he will be our big player and our skipper William Poterfield who played very well in Dubai,” he said.
On the other hand Nepal are the newest addition to the T20 Championship, becoming the sixth team to qualify for the tournament in the Qualifier tournament held in UAE. Captain Paras Khadka informed that they have been trying to reach such a big event for a long time.
"I think we are here to present Nepal cricket in front of the whole world, it is a great opportunity for us. It is not like we have only qualified for this tournament and worked for three months. We have been playing for 10-12 years with hard work and playing continuous cricket. We are here to compete and play to the best of our ability. If we play to our potential, things should be good for us,” said Khadka.
He informed that Nepal’s participation in the tournament will boost the country’s cricket, “I think we have been playing cricket since 1996. We have been part of the ACC (Asian Cricket Council) since then. CAN (Cricket Association of Nepal) is one of the oldest sporting associations back home. We are getting there.
“Football and cricket are the two most popular sports. Everybody follows us. Kids love the game. The game is really growing big time. It is very exciting. We have an amazing fan following back home. The number of cricket fans that we have matches any Test-playing country,” he added.
