Ireland ready for Pakistan spin test – Ed Joyce

Newlands (Agencies): Ireland coach Ed Joyce says countering Pakistan’s spin attack will be key to success in the Women’s T20 World Cup game at Newlands on Wednesday.

Joyce’s side, beaten by England in Monday’s group opener, beat Pakistan 2-1 in a T20 series in November.

“We know we’re going to come up against a spin-heavy attack, so we’ve got to be prepared for that,” said Joyce. “We had some success there in the T20 series and that’ll give us some confidence that we can turn them over.”

He added: “I think the fact that we’ve played them very recently is a good thing. “We could have played the English spinners better, so that’s something we’re talking about and focusing on for Wednesday. Pakistan are a very good team – I think it’ll be a good competitive game.”

Pakistan also lost their opening Group B match, going down to a seven-wicket defeat by India. Ireland stunned Australia in the build-up to the tournament and they made a good start with the bat against England in Paarl.

But from 80-2 they slumped to 105 all out and England were charging towards the target before losing five late wickets, with spinner Cara Murray taking an impressive 3-15.

“There were some things in the England game that we can definitely take confidence from, so we’ll be looking to bring that in against Pakistan try to put in an all-around performance,” Joyce said. “I think England would have been impressed with what they saw on Monday. Certainly I was really happy with the intent we showed with the bat all the way through.
“I think we could have been a little bit smarter with maybe some of the shots that we played, but I think the intent to score from ball one is something that we’ve really stressed and I’d like to see us keep doing. “And then with the ball, again there was some untidy stuff, but there was some really, really high quality bowling in there as well.
“So delig