Laura Delany confident of Ireland's ability to bounce back against Zimbabwe

Ireland skipper Laura Delany has said that they did not do well on the field with the ball to defend the total against Zimbabwe in the first ODI.



After being put in to bat by the hosts, Ireland scored 253 for eight, with Delany leading from the front. She scored 88 runs from 81 balls before getting out to Josephine Nkomo. In return, Zimbabwe captain Mary-Anne Musonda smashed a match-winning century and led them to a comfortable win on their ODI debut.



Speaking ahead of the second ODI, Delany said that the total was defendable even on a batting wicket. "Zimbabwe are a very professional side, they were very athletic in the field, and they bowled and batted really well," she said.



"We thought we had enough runs on the board, but perhaps, (we) didn't back that up with the ball and in the field. Unfortunately, we let a couple of chances go down, which impacted on our ability to drag them back and put more pressure on them.”

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Delany said that the team management is satisfied with their batting performance, adding, "Leah Paul and Gaby Lewis were played patiently up at the top and gave us a great foundation to build on."



"Rebecca Stokell continued on the good start after Pauly fell. Then myself and Shauna Kavanagh had a good partnership which gave our batters in the latter overs the opportunity to really have a go - which Sophie MacMahon did brilliantly, scoring 29 off just 13 balls."



The last time Ireland played international cricket in the ODI was in the ICC T20 World Cup Europe Qualifiers. Ireland captain was happy to get some game time after a couple of months gap.



Trailing 0-1 in the four-match ODI series, Delany was confident that Ireland would come back strong in the remaining matches.



"We didn’t come out the right side of it yesterday, but we have three more games ahead of us and will be looking to put right the skills and tactics we know that we need to work on.”