Ireland v USA

Play-off semi-final – Ireland (197/4) beat USA (196) by six wickets

Ireland captain Andrew Balbirnie:“They started pretty well but we went bang-bang and cracked an end open. We bowled pretty well throughout, we had clear plans, and to bowl a team out for less than 200 on this wicket was a good effort.

“The wickets aren’t that easy to take 10 wickets on, we found it tough in the last week but we came in with confidence having won our last game. There is a different energy about us. The guys have a weight off the shoulders now and we are enjoying it, so hopefully we can win one more game.

“Paul [Stirling] set the tone in the reply, as always, and it was nice to be there at the end to finish it off.

USA captain Monank Patel:“On this ground, it’s important to win the toss. The wicket was really good and initially we applied ourselves, but later on we lost back-to-back wickets. Sai [Saiteja Mukkamalla] and Sushant [Modani] played really well and both of their dismissals were very unlucky. We knew we were two batters short, we needed more in the middle order to take responsibility. That’s why we ended up 50 or 60 runs short.

“It is always tough when you are losing and people are getting sick in the camp, which is happening every other day. It has been tough but we have to fight it out and make sure we win the last game.

“Before we came here, we had never played against a full member team. There are a lot of learnings for us and now we know what the reality check is like. We need to make sure we prepare ourselves better when we play them again and make sure we play our best cricket.”