Sunday’s matches – West Indies vs. UAE and Pakistan vs. Ireland – decided the line-up for the ongoing ICC World Cup quarter-finals.
Where West Indies convincingly beat UAE, Pakistan took their own time to strike the final blow against Ireland.
Though it was an easy win for West Indies, they had to chase whatever the target set inside 36 overs. They managed to do that in the 31st over after losing 4 wickets.
Jason Holder, the West Indies captain, was extremely pleased with the result and must have revelled in his own individual performance of 4 for 27.
West Indies captain Jason Holder celebrates a wicket
“We needed to win by a certain margin. We had to show positive intent. We knew we had to finish the game inside 36 overs and we did it”, is what he said during the post-match presentation ceremony.
The final Pool match between Pakistan and Ireland saw Pakistani wicketkeeper Sarfraz Ahmed become the first man since 2007 World Cup to score a century for his team in this major tournament.
Sarfraz Ahmed scored an unbeaten century against Ireland
The conclusion of yesterday’s matches meant that the World Cup has its eight quarter-finalist teams – South Africa, Sri Lanka, India, New Zealand, Australia, Bangladesh, Pakistan and West Indies – that will compete against one another for the coveted prize.
CONFIRMED, We have our 8 quarter-final teams & 4 brilliant #cwc15 matches coming up!
MORE – http://t.co/4toFMH6x0q pic.twitter.com/oUYBeFnfEV
— ICC (@ICC) March 15, 2015
The first quarter-final match will be played on 18th March between Sri Lanka and South Africa. Defending champions India will take on their Asian adversary Bangladesh on the 19th in Melbourne. Australia, the four-time former World Cup champion, will face Pakistan on March 20. The quarter-finals will end with co-host New Zealand taking on West Indies on the 21st of March in Wellington.
Where the post-match programme Cricket Live yesterday saw the cricket legends predicting winners of the quarter-finals as South Africa, India, Australia and New Zealand, it will only be on the match day when we get to witness as to which teams handle the pressure better.
In case any of the quarter-final / semi-final matches gets abandoned or tied, the team that finished in a higher position than their opponent would move on to the next stage of the competition.
