T20 World Cup: Ireland can make progress despite tournament exit - Balbirnie

Namibia shock Ireland to qualify for Super 12 stage

Ireland captain Andrew Balbirnie says his squad can learn lessons from their failure to make the Super12 stage of the men's T20 World Cup and improve.

Ireland exited the tournament after suffering a shock eight-wicket defeat by Namibia in their final group match.

"We are bitterly disappointed but we are moving in the right direction, improving I feel," said Balbirnie.

"We've got a good young squad who are hungry to learn so we can move forward, learn lessons and improve our skills."

"Fair play to Namibia, they played well, and it just wasn't our day today."

Ireland have now failed to qualify for the main draw of the competition on each occasion since 2012 but looked on course to progress from Group A along with Sri Lanka when they reached 62-0 in their innings on Friday.

Despite their productive powerplay, a batting collapse in Sharjah saw the Irish finish on 125-8 with Namibia surpassing that target with nine balls to spare.

Ireland had beaten the Netherlands by seven wickets in their opening match, with the help of Curtis Campher's four wickets in four balls, but then lost by 70 runs to the Sri Lankans.

Their failure to make the Super12s also means they will now have to try and qualify for next year's Men's T20 World Cup rather than qualify automatically.

"We've played three really good teams this week and I think that can help us get better," argued the Ireland skipper.

"You can see the depth in cricket around the world and we've got to keep playing these good cricket teams so we can improve."

'We didn't take Namibia lightly'

"Namibia didn't take us by surprise - we certainly didn't take them lightly - we just didn't put in a performance that warranted winning the game and we have to live with that but we move on.

"It will be a tough 24 hours to sit back and look at what we could and should have done but the guys are learning and want to learn.

"There's a good mix of youth and experience in the squad but at the end of the day if you are not getting the results we have to look at ourselves and see where we can get those results.

"It's been a really important tour for a lot of the young players in the squad and the chance to go out and play the big boys next week would have been the opportunity of a lifetime.

"It's a shame that won't be happening but hopefully this time next year we will be doing that."

Inpho

Namibia captain Gerhard Erasmus celebrates after his side's eight-wicket victory over Ireland

Batting collapse proved crucial

Balbirnie conceded that Ireland's failure to build on the foundation built by openers Paul Stirling (38) and Kevin O'Brien (25) saw them face an uphill task against the Namibians. The Irish captain himself contributed 21.

"We got off to a really good start in the powerplay and a score of 150 plus looked on, so to only get 125 was very disappointing. That was the area we lost the game.

"My batting didn't help proceedings - I found it really tough out there and they bowled well and made it hard for us to score.

"Our T20 cricket has been inconsistent, that's been a big issue, and it's been the case in this tournament too."

Good depth to bowling attack

The Irish captain offered praise however for bowlers Curtis Campher, Josh Little, Mark Adair and Craig Young, who all performed admirably in the tournament.

"We have a good depth to our seam bowling attack now but we've got to bring it all together whenever we play those big games and put in that performance that warrants getting to the next phase.

"Our performance in this game didn't do that and that's the disappointing thing. We're going home disappointed in the way we performed today.

"We've got to find that consistency and hopefully we can do that."

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