It was the inexperience of the Irish that cost them 60-odd runs in the last five overs and propelled England from a precarious 194/5 in the 44th over. Paul Collingwood was the undisputed star scoring 90 and he finally got some support from the middle order with Andrew Flintoff scoring 43, Kevin Pietersen 48 and Ian Bell a scrappy 31. England's batting woes at the top of the order continued with Ed Joyce being bowled for 1 in the second over and captain Michael Vaughan falling for just 6 to push them back to 23/2.
Ireland only has their inexperience to blame for the lack of discipline in the last five overs. Any other team with some more experience and slightly better bowling resources would have restricted England to around 230. In the end, 266 was too big. For England, though, 266 isn't nearly enough.
Ireland's topscorer Niall O'Brien (63) fell to a beautifully flighted delivery by England captain Michael Vaughan and that effectively ended any fight the Irish may have fancied in the last 10 overs. For Ireland to have a realistic chance needed to be at approximately 200 after 40 overs with just about 70-odd to chase in the last 10. But wickets are also important at this stage and Ireland fell short on both counts. Andrew Flintoff was the best bowler (statistically) for England with 4/43 but Monty Panesar and Sajid Mahmood were the ones who really shone.
England finally won but only by 43 runs. Not the kind of margin they would have liked. England now sits at fourth spot in the points table ahead of South Africa on net run-rate but with matches against Sri Lanka, Australia and West Indies to follow, they will need to make sure they win and with good margins. And they seriously need to sort out the top order.
On not being able to last for 50 overs
"Very rarely do you play a 100 percent game and at the minute we're playing at about 80 percent," "I'd like to see us playing a bit more than that." - "There are obviously areas where we need to improve but there are also areas where we were very good as well."
On Irish team putting up a good fight
"It would have been nice to nail home the Irish when we had them six down and when we had got the rate to 11 an over, but that wasn't to be and they played well and we just didn't quite get it right for a few overs."
On English team bowling well in the slog overs
" The last five overs we showed that we can get it right. We need to try and bowl teams out when we get an opportunity, when they're five or six down, as we haven't done that yet."
England all rounder, Andrew Flintoff
On him scoring 40 runs after getting out on naught in previous inning
"I only scored 40. It'd be nice to kick on and score a few more but having batted in the middle I feel a lot better where I am at now than I did before the innings."
On England losing too many wickets
"None of us are playing to our full potential. Probably in this World Cup it is about peaking at the right times,"- "We have got big hitters. As yet we've probably not fired as a group together. That's something we are striving to do.."
On Ireland being able to score 200-runs mark
"We are also maybe not bowling as well as we'd like at times,"
