Ton up for Porterfield

The opening batsman guided his side to another impressive victory against Oman, as Ireland continued their quest to qualify for the ICC T/20 World Cup which takes place in Sri Lanka, in September.

The victory on Monday means Ireland will face Canada tomorrow (Thursday) in the knock out stages, before taking on either Scotland or Holland in the semi-final, but Porterfield is only focusing on the Canadian game.

“The five teams who are going to be left are going to be five strong teams and whoever goes through the final from those five teams will deserve to go through, because there is going to be a few tough games, no matter who we play,” admitted Ireland’s skipper.

“It’s going to be a knock out phase and we are looking forward to it and we feel we are peaking at the right time.

“It was a comfortable victory, but we backed ourselves to put a total on the board, because generally it gets a bit slower and lower here (Abu Dhabi), so just backed ourselves to get through the few overs and put a total on the board and the way that (Gary) Wilson, Kevin (O’Brien) and (Paul) Stirling played we got that descent total on the board.”

The 27-year-old was also proud to have ranked up so many captains’ innings for his country.

“Obviously over the last few years Ireland have had a lot more fixtures so 100 caps comes around a lot sooner, I’m around 140 caps now, with 100 of those as captain and it is a great honour and privilege.

“To captain your country is something very special so to do it 100 times is obviously great, but to go through this tournament and get to the World Cup, would be even nicer.”