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Ireland captain Paul Stirling says his side can still make the Super 8s at the T20 World Cup despite a disastrous defeat to Canada.
A 12-run defeat against the Associate member after a disappointing performance in New York leaves Ireland on the brink of elimination after two games.
Nicholas Kirton’s 35-ball 49 helped Canada to 137-7 as Barry McCarthy finished with 2-24.
Ireland slumped to 59-6 before Mark Adair's 34 and George Dockrell's unbeaten 30 took them close but they ultimately fell short.
Stirling’s side require two wins from their remaining two group games and for results elsewhere to go their way while simultaneously boosting their own net run-rate.
“There’s no reason we can’t go out and beat the USA and Pakistan but we need to play a hell of a lot better if we want to do that,” said Stirling.
“We’ve got two huge games. It is still massive every time you pull on the shirt, you want to go and win.
"There will be slightly different conditions at Lauderhill in Florida – we know them slightly better and we’ll be giving it as best a crack as we can.
“We just want to play our best cricket for as long as we can. I’ve hammered for the last year that if we don’t play our best cricket we will not win games of cricket, so we need to get back to our best next week.”
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Ireland’s top order struggled at the ground in Eisenhower Park as they went nine overs – between the sixth and 15th – without hitting a single boundary.
Stirling felt it was a “tough pitch to score boundaries on” but felt Canada were simply more disciplined with the ball than his attack.
“They generally bowled very well. They hit their lengths a lot better than us,” he explained.
“As soon as they were back to that hard length that basically got them through and won them the game in the end.
“I thought we could have restricted them to a lot less than 140 – 120 was what we had in our head.”
The sluggish outfield at the Nassau County International Cricket Stadium also played a part in Ireland’s poor scoring rate, but Stirling felt the Canadians deserved to win on their T20 World Cup tournament debut.
“We saw even if you hit good cricket shots and beat the infield it didn’t go for four,” he added.
“They put enough pressure back on us at certain points, but then played smart enough cricket to score singles off the rest of the balls. It was just good batting.”
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