Ireland's WCL win leaves Afghanistan with a chance of qualifying for 2015 World Cup

Ireland wins WCL title

Ireland won the World Cricket League Championship (WCL) after beating Scotland convincingly by 7 wickets at Belfast, Scotland. With this win, Ireland have boosted Afghanistan’s chances of qualifying for the World Cup.The  team who finishes second in WCL will get direct entry to the mega event as Ireland have already qualified for World Cup.

Hosts Scotland had to win both their weekend fixtures to increase their chances of direct qualification for the World Cup. But having failed to do so, they will have to wait for the World Cup Qualifiers scheduled in New Zealand next year.

Meanwhile, Afghanistan, who are currently third in the points table with 15 points, can finish above Scotland in second place and gain qualification, if they can beat Kenya in their two remaining matches. On the other hand, Netherlands have already finished their allocated matches and are on 18 points. They will be hoping for at least one Afghanistan defeat to clinch the second place.

Moving on to the yesterday’s match, Scotland won the toss and chose to bat. Scotland’s innings never got any momentum as they lost wickets at regular interval and only managed to post a target of 166 runs for visitors – who have a strong batting line-up. Calum MacLeod was the top-scorer for Scotland, while Kevin O’Brien and Max Sorensen picked up three wickets each for Ireland.

Chasing the target of 166 runs, Ireland, with help of 65 runs from Niall O’Brien, reached the target in 33 overs to register 7 wicket win and claim the WCL title.

Here is the WCL points table: