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Thursday, July 10, 2025

Shepherd, Smith fireworks in vain as Ireland level series

by

Sports Desk
1274 days ago
20220114
West Indies batsman Romario Shepherd, right, walks towards his partner Odean Smith after hitting a six during the second One Day International (ODI) against Ireland yesterday at Sabina Park, Jamaica. Both men shared in a 58-run partnership that helped the West Indies recover from a middle order collapse.

West Indies batsman Romario Shepherd, right, walks towards his partner Odean Smith after hitting a six during the second One Day International (ODI) against Ireland yesterday at Sabina Park, Jamaica. Both men shared in a 58-run partnership that helped the West Indies recover from a middle order collapse.

CWI Media

KINGSTON, Ja­maica – Ro­mario Shep­herd’s maid­en One-Day In­ter­na­tion­al half-cen­tu­ry went vain as em­bat­tled Ire­land stunned a lack­lus­tre West In­dies by five wick­ets un­der Duck­worth-Lewis-Stern on Thurs­day, to lev­el the three-match se­ries.

Sent in at Sabi­na Park in the resched­uled sec­ond con­test, West In­dies col­lapsed to 111 for sev­en in the 34th over be­fore Shep­herd pro­duced one of two sen­sa­tion­al late cameos with 50 off 41 de­liv­er­ies, to pro­pel the hosts to 229 all out off 48 overs.

Odean Smith matched him with an au­da­cious 19-ball 46, the pair putting on a rol­lick­ing 58 off 27 de­liv­er­ies for the ninth wick­et.

In re­ply, how­ev­er, Ire­land was guid­ed by Har­ry Tec­tor’s un­beat­en 54 off 75 de­liv­er­ies, the right-han­der com­plet­ing his sec­ond suc­ces­sive half-cen­tu­ry of the se­ries with four fours and a six.

Rain forced a near 1-½ hour-long de­lay at 157 for four in the 32nd over and when play re­sumed, the re­vised tar­get of 168 from 36 overs left Ire­land re­quir­ing on­ly 11 runs from 28 balls, and they over­hauled their tar­get with George Dock­rell (5) the on­ly ca­su­al­ty.

“As I said be­fore, our tech­niques would be test­ed and two games out of two, we’ve found our­selves in­side the first 20 overs, four wick­ets down,” West In­dies cap­tain Kieron Pol­lard lament­ed.

“We spoke about how we want­ed to com­bat that and we found our­selves in the same po­si­tion, so in­di­vid­u­als need to find a way.

“We didn’t seem to have the an­swers in the first 20 overs – we were star­ing down the bar­rel of be­ing bowled out in­side the first 30 overs.

“We need to take stock. There are no amount of words and ex­cus­es you can use to come and try and per­form on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage.”

For Ire­land whose squad was left thread­bare by sev­er­al COVID-19 pos­i­tives over the last week, the vic­to­ry was a mas­sive boost ahead of the se­ries de­cider on Sun­day.

“[The win] means a lot. We’re de­light­ed with the way the lads re­spond­ed, com­ing from a tough loss the oth­er day,” said stand-in cap­tain Paul Stir­ling, who missed the open­er while re­cov­er­ing from COVID.

“To come and put a per­for­mance in like this af­ter the sort of off-field ac­tiv­i­ties that have gone on, we’re de­light­ed to get the win.”

Seam­er Craig Young (3-42) had ear­li­er wiped out the West In­dies top or­der, Shai Hope (17) caught at the wick­et on re­view, Justin Greaves los­ing his off-stump for ten and Nicholas Pooran lbw for one, al­so cour­tesy of DRS.

Stum­bling on 43 for three in the 14th, in-form Shamarh Brooks ar­rived and stroked 43 runs off 64 balls with five fours, adding 48 for the fourth wick­et with Ros­ton Chase (11), to steady the in­nings.

When Brooks missed a sweep at left-arm spin­ner Dock­rell to be lbw in the 34th over, four wick­ets tum­bled for 20 runs in quick time as off-spin­ner Andy McBrine (4-36) ripped through the mid­dle or­der, leav­ing the hosts star­ing at their low­est-ever to­tal against Ire­land.

En­ter­ing at num­ber nine, Shep­herd belt­ed sev­en fours while Smith, play­ing at his home venue in on­ly his sec­ond ODI, smote two fours and five gi­ant six­es at num­ber 10, as West In­dies gath­ered 96 runs from the last nine overs of the in­nings.

Shep­herd al­so put on 32 for the eighth wick­et with Akeal Ho­sein (11) and a fur­ther 28 for the last wick­et with Alzarri Joseph (four not out).

Ire­land was then giv­en a de­cent start by William Porter­field (26) who put on 37 for the first wick­et with Stir­ling (21).

But it was Tec­tor who put Ire­land ahead of the run chase by an­chor­ing two key stands, post­ing 44 for the third wick­et with McBrine (35) be­fore adding a fur­ther 53 for the fourth wick­et with Cur­tis Cam­pher (12).

SCORES

WEST IN­DIES 229 off 48 overs (Ro­mario Shep­herd 50, Odean Smith 46, Shamarh Brooks 43; Andy McBrine 4-36, Craig Young 3-42, Josh Lit­tle 2-40)

IRE­LAND 168 for five off 32.4 overs (Har­ry Tec­tor 54 not out, Andy McBrine 35, William Porter­field 26; Akeal Ho­sein 2-51)

Re­sult: Ire­land won by five wick­ets (DLS).

Se­ries: Three-match se­ries tied 1-1.

Play­er-of-the-Match: Har­ry Tec­tor.

Toss: Ire­land.

Um­pires: J Wil­son, L Reifer Jr; TV – N Duguid.


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