Player of the Match
Player of the Match

Match Centre

Statistics

Best performances - Batsmen

A Balbirnie
A Balbirnie
82(102) 4x4 - 1x6
Control %91%
  • Productive Shot
  • cover drive
  • 16 runs
  • 1x4 - 0x6
5 11 5 10 18 9 13 11
J Gumbie
72(106) 8x4 - 0x6
Control %81%
  • Productive Shot
  • flick
  • 16 runs
  • 0x4 - 0x6
10 14 7 11 15 2 5 8

Best performances - Bowlers

GI Hume
O8
M1
R34
W4
Eco4.25
RHB
OFFLEG
1W
2W
1W
  • FTFULL TOSS
  • YYORKER
  • FFULL LENGTH
  • GGOOD LENGTH
  • SGSHORT OF GOOD LENGTH
  • SSHORT LENGTH
LHB
LEGOFF
C Campher
C Campher
O8
M0
R37
W4
Eco4.62
RHB
OFFLEG
1W
1W1W
  • FTFULL TOSS
  • YYORKER
  • FFULL LENGTH
  • GGOOD LENGTH
  • SGSHORT OF GOOD LENGTH
  • SSHORT LENGTH
LHB
LEGOFF
1W

Match Details

Toss

Ireland , elected to field first

Player Of The Match

Player Of The Series

Series result

Ireland won the 3-match series 2-0

Match number

Season

Hours of play (local time)

9.15 start, First Session 9.15-12.45, Interval 12.45-13.30, Second Session 13.30-17.00

Match days

17 December 2023 (50-over match)

TV Umpires

Reserve Umpire

Match Referee

Scorer: Harshith Gowda | Commentator: Aaditya Narayan

5:38pm: The Irish players celebrate a superb series win, and that's all we have for you tonight. On behalf of our scorer Harshith and my fellow commentator Abhimanyu, this is Aaditya signing off. Take care, good night!

Paul Stirling: I think we've saved our best performance for the last. So happy for the lads. We've worked so hard over the winter, so it's good to have the reward. I never felt like we were too far in the ODI stuff, it was about the little things. The team has performed outstandingly, I just practiced my coin toss in the winter. I'm so proud of the lads, thoroughly deserved. We've got a number of series coming, the T20 World Cup is the first thing that comes to mind. Plenty of cricket coming up. The control with both bat and ball stood out, sometimes that has not been there in the past."

Curtis Campher is the Player of the Series

"Just really happy to contribute to the team. It was a team decision (to promote him to no.3), the head coach came to me and said this is what we're going to do in the future. Happy to hit the ground running. I'm not thinking about too much, just seeing the ball and hitting the ball."

The Player of the Match is Andy Balbirnie

"As a top order batter, you're looking for consistency, but know you're one knock away from finding form. So it was good to be out there at the end. The wickets were very difficult. I knew if I set myself up for the back end, I would do well. It's always good to come to Harare. This was probably the best surface out of the three games, was a bit tricky with the lightning around. Credit to our bowlers for restricting them. You can always pinpoint small moments in games, but I think if you bide your time, you get that luck. Sometimes it goes your way, sometimes it doesn't.

Sikandar Raza:: I thought we were 20-25 runs short on that wicket. We keep doing the same things again and again that's hurting Zimbabwe cricket. It's our job as batters to bat most of the over, and we didn't do again that today. I thought myself and Joylord had a very good partnership. My dismissal came at the wrong. Unfortunately when I got, the floodgates opened, and we never got any partnerships after that. Credit to Ireland for showing us how to play on tricky wickets like that, sometimes we need to graft. It didn't help that we had 8 to 9 guys injured, and some of those are senior players as well. But opportunities present themselves, I just hope the guys can grab those. All I'm praying for is for those 8 to 9 guys to be fit because we're going to need the best squad to go to Sri Lanka.

Stick around for a bit for the post-match presentation from Harare

5:05pm: What a good win that is for Ireland. That is also their first-ever ODI series win in Zimbabwe.

Joylord Gumbie's 72 had taken Zimbabwe to 197 earlier. That always felt a bit below par, but it was certainly a total Zimbabwe could've fought win, and when they dismissed Stirling early, that looked a possibility. But Andrew Balbirnie used all his experience to just hold one end up, even though he was visibily out of form and not striking it too well. He finishes on 82*, Tucker finishes on an enterprising 29*, but the work of the likes of Curtis Campher and Graham Hume with the ball shouldn't go unnoticed.

It's been a treacherous couple of months for Zimbabwe now, with the T20 World Cup qualifier defeat now followed by losses in both the T20I and ODI series against Ireland at home.

37.5
4
Chivanga to Tucker, FOUR, And that will be that! Full and wide outside off, that's a stunning cover drive that whistles away to the fence, and Ireland win the series 2-0
37.4
4
Chivanga to Tucker, FOUR, Tucker nails the pull shot and scores are level! Short ball from Chivanga, Tucker stays on the front foot, just transfers his weight back and then smashes the pull past midwicket
37.4
1w
Chivanga to Tucker, 1 wide, slower one again, but loses the radar as it goes way down the legside
37.3
1
Chivanga to Balbirnie, 1 run, full and straight this time, Balbirnie digs it out down the ground and gets Ireland to within a shot away
37.2
0
Chivanga to Balbirnie, no run, slower ball on a length, and tight to the stumps, worked to midwicket
37.1
1
Chivanga to Tucker, 1 run, short again this time, he nails the pull shot this time, but doesn't place it either side of the fielder at deep square leg

Ireland 2nd innings Partnerships

WktRunsPlayers
1st12A BalbirniePR Stirling
2nd70A BalbirnieC Campher
3rd63A BalbirnieHT Tector
4th59A BalbirnieLJ Tucker