I think they need to drugs-test the Irish team, and especially Kevin O'Brien!!

Never seen an innings quite like that. Outstanding batting, but poor in the field and poor bowling from England again.

Well done Ireland, amazing.

Disgraceful.

Send them home.

Oops!







Brilliant effort by the Irish lower order but, seriously, a lot of this England team need to hang their heads in shame. I'm just glad I'm in work so I haven't had to sit through watching that shambles!

Abysmal, England poor bowling in ODI's over the past couple of years has finally caught up with them, are they incapable of bowling straight?. The worst aspect of the defeat is that it was a comftable win for the Irish, you knew with about 15 overs remaining that there was only going to be one winner today?.

England doing their bit for the record books.

Also Strauss thought we had dropped two or three catches ... excuse me captain ... keep up.

Every dot ball worth a fortune ... containment being the name of the game ... the key to winning ... it creates its own pressure.
England seem to lose sight of that.

Well done Ireland ... England in the field a shambles.

Can fatigue from a gruelling Ashes series be a valid excuse? A lot of these guys have hardly been home in 6 months.

Just putting the thought out there . . . .

Possibly ... but it would be a 'lame' excuse (pun intended).

I would say the answer lies in mental attitude and being organised and motivated. They have the skill, but are poor at applying it (in the field mainly... their batting is OK).

Well played Ireland

I think it's a perfectly valid excuse. I never expected much out of England in this World Cup. I know if it was me I'd be ready for home now.

The winter has dragged on too long and their minds will be on the summer series against Sri Lanka and India and trying to establish ourselves as the world number 1 team. We would have been better off sending the fringe players/ODI specialists out for this and letting the first teamers put their feet up at home.

Put Ireland against England over five days with white clothes and a red ball and that slogger wouldn't last five minutes, we'd knock them over for about 120 and Anderson would have 6 for 30 odd. Then Ireland would spend two days in the field while Cook and Trott accumulated double centuries.

The world cup is a bit like the League Cup in football when you have a Champions League match coming up, best thing to do is send out the reserves, see what happens, if you lose be magnanimous in defeat and then move on. The World Cup used to mean something back in say 1987 and 1992 but somehow since the 96 World cup there has been so much ODI cricket and now the 20/20 stuff that it makes it devalued.

50 over cricket is dying on its booty anyway, limited over cricket is going to focus on the 20/20 form of the game where we are World Cup Winners, although to be honest I forgot we even won that.

Winning the World Cup = a good night on the sauce
Winning the Ashes = immortality

The fact Pakistan beat them put me off a bit.

So next up for South Africa 'B' ....it's South Africa 'A'

Looks bleak doesnt it.

It does when you consider we have won two out of our last ten 50 over games. So we are not good enough at this format.

i think O'Brien faced 50 balls. 22 of them were dot balls and he only scored of 28 balls in getting a hundred.

I dont think the dot balls were the problem it was the ones that went for 4 and 6

Just a poor all round performance yet again from England!! Give up at ODI cricket England, stick to Test Match cricket!!

Pakistan bowled out for 184 against Canada.
Sad thing is people (including me) will be thinking and/or saying "are they on the take?" again...

Good to see England's selection policy of leaving the Asians to carry the drinks paying off again...

That, and "God I hope Canada win, then the Ireland win might not look [iquite [/iso embarrassing."

The main problem for England is that our bowling is too tame for these conditions.....Bowling line and length at 80-85 mph on these featherbeds is absolute cannon fodder for any batsman above mediocre standard....All 3 of England's opponents have destroyed England's attack and 2 of those are no better than county standard.

The Aussies and South Africans have the best attacks, a number of guys chucking it down at 90mph+, they both will be there and thereabouts at the end of all this.

What a pitiful performance, take out the Bopara/Trott partnership & it would have been even more humiliating. So glad I got up at 4am to watch that.

Now the batsmen have caught the abysmal bug, Saffers crusing to an easy win.

Mabye I spoke too soon, two quick wickets and SA are under a bit of pressure, still need 48 to win with 5 wickets remaining.

SA 214/5 chasing 172

Still expect them to get over the line.

Shocking decision fron the 3rd Umpire, clear deflection from the bat, nowhere near the thigh pad.

Obviously what I meant to say was that on this wicket that may prove a tricky total.

SA limping home at the moment, just a pity England could not get another 20 or 30 runs. Game was lost in the first 25 overs of the England innings.