T20 World Cup Qualifier: Ireland lose by 10 runs to Canada

Canada have won all three of their qualifying matches

Ireland's bid to qualify for the T20 World Cup finals suffered a setback as they lost to Canada by 10 runs in the Qualifier in Abu Dhabi.

A poor batting performance meant Ireland fell short of their target, finishing on 146-7 after Canada posted a total of 156-5 from their 20 overs.

Boyd Rankin took two wickets as Navneet Dhaliwal (69) and Nitish Kumar (53) top-scored for the Canadians.

Ireland's defeat follows wins over Hong Kong and Oman as well as a loss to UAE.

They are fourth in Group B, with the top four teams remaining in contention for qualification for the finals.

They have two group games left to play, against Jersey on Friday and Nigeria on Saturday, and will need to win both convincingly.

Canada's win was one of the most significant of their T20 history and takes them back to the top of Group B, ahead of Oman in second and Jersey in third.

Rankin took two wickets for Ireland

Paul Stirling made 23 before being bowled by Saad Bin Zafar, but fellow opener Kevin O'Brien could only manage four from four balls.

Andrew Balbirnie was out first ball to Jeremy Gordon, with Stuart Thompson carrying the fight in Ireland's tail but his 28 not out was not enough to prevent defeat.

"They got a few more than we would have liked with the bat, but credit to the two boys who put on the runs, I thought they played well," said Ireland captain Gary Wilson.

"At half-time they were probably 10 runs or so more than we would have liked, but we still felt we could chase them down. But as we saw, it can be difficult to chase when teams put the squeeze on."

He added: "We just need to get a bit better in every department. We weren't able to chase down 150-odd today, on any ground on any wicket we should be able to do that, but we just need to look at every department and get 10% better."