Ireland veteran Ed Joyce’s unbeaten 116 helped Ireland recover from a tricky situation to beat UAE by four wickets in the 1st game of the ODI Tri-series in Dubai.
Chasing the hosts’ total of 222/9, Ireland were in early trouble at 5/2 and then at 91/5 before Joyce’s brilliant innings and his 6th wicket partnership of 131 runs with Gary Wilson (53) steered Ireland to victory in the 50th over. Ed Joyce thus scored his 6th ODI century upon his return to competitive cricket after he missed out Ireland’s last round of I-Cup match against Scotland and the following ODI series against Afghanistan in UAE.
Earlier, Rameez Shahzad’s (75) composed knock anchored UAE’s innings to take them to their final total. Shahzad got good support from debutante, Mohammad Boota (37 off 51) with another debutante, Ashfaq Ahmed (35 off 35) providing a quick start to the innings.
Boyd Rankin, Barry McCarthy, Peter Chase and Kevin O’Brien all picked up two wickets apiece for Ireland with George Dockrell picking up a solitary wicket.
Brief scores:
UAE 222/9 in 50 overs (Rameez Shahzad 75, Mohammad Boota 37, Ashfaq Ahmed 35, Boyd Rankin 2/26, Kevin O’Brien 2/39, Barry McCarthy 2/47, Peter Chase 2/50) lost to Ireland 226/6 in 49.2 overs (Ed Joyce 116 n.o, Gary Wilson 53, Mohammad Naveed 2/45, Ahmed Raza 2/49) by 4 wickets
