NELSON, New Zealand, CMC – Ireland captain Williams Porterfield has rejected media characterisations that yesterday’s four-wicket victory over West Indies was an upset.
“I don’t see it as an upset,” he said.
“We prepared to come into this game to win, we’re going to prepare to go into the UAE (United Arab Emirates) game to win, South Africa after that and so on.”
Ireland, an associate International Cricket Council member, lie 11th of 12 nations in the ICC one-day rankings while West Indies, World Cup champions in 1975 and 1979, are eighth.
As an associate, Ireland were forced to go through a qualifying competition to reach the World Cup.
Porterfield also hit out at Ireland’s categorization within the cricketing world.
“The term an upset, anything from minnows to associate, I don’t see why a team has to be an associate or a team has to be a full member,” Porterfield contended.
“Sure you’re ranked one to whatever but it’s not like that in any other sport and I don’t see why it has to be like that in ours.”
Their victory over West Indies is not the first time they have created a major shock at a World Cup. They stunned England four years ago in India and did the same to Pakistan back in 2007 when the showpiece was staged in the Caribbean.
Porterfield explained that Ireland had prepared well for the West Indies encounter and said their execution had also been great. “They came at us after a few overs pretty aggressively, and the way the lads stuck at it and kept scoring was great,” Porterfield said in reference to how Ireland chased down their target of 305 with 25 balls to spare.
