Ireland Edge Zimbabwe in Third and Final One-day global

Tim Murtagh’s all-round effort helped Ireland pull off a consolation win against Zimbabwe on Tuesday.

Murtagh was the pick of the bowlers for Ireland with career-best figures of 4 for 32 from his ten overs. At 7 for 2, the home side looked at dire straits but the middle-order led by Williams recovered the situation.

However, after falling to 160 for eight, Murtagh came in with a couple of lusty blows to take Ireland over the line alongside McBrine to round off the series. The other change that Zimbabwe made were they dropped Tinashe Panyangara and replaced him with seamer Taurai Muzarabani.

An unbroken stand of 29 between the “Lambeth Lara” and the North West Warriors skipper gave Ireland a dramatic two-wicket victory and kept them within touching distance of their victors in 10th place in the ODI table.

Before the start of the game, Elton Chigumbura, the Zimbabwe captain, had spoken about the need for his bowlers to put on an improved show, and they delivered. The openers – Chamu Chibhabha and Richmond Mutumbami – were back in the hut with just seven runs on board.

George Dockrell then secured two brilliant run-outs in the space of six balls as the Zimbabwean tail-end imploded.

Zimbabwe shift their attention to the limited overs series against Afghanistan which starts with the first ODI at Queens Sports Club on Friday, while Ireland will play Zimbabwe “A” in a four-day match, starting at Harare Sports Club on Saturday. After that, Ireland picked up the remaining wickets without much fuss.

However, Williams, who was desperate for a big score, put on 49 runs for the third wicket with Chari (17), who had looked solid in defence before he was bowled by Murtagh in the 20th over.