Paul Stirling | Ireland captain: [On Afghanistan’s second-wicket partnership] I think full credit to Afghanistan. I think that second wicket partnership in the first innings really took the game away from us and they had the opportunity, which you don’t have too often in one-day cricket, to bat a side out of the game, and they effectively did that without entirely doing it. [On Ireland pulling the game back with wickets towards the end of Afghanistan’s innings] Yeah, look, I think they were on for 370 or 380, and I think we clawed it back quite well. Once we took those two wickets, Garpo again breaking that partnership, I think we actually did really well. And you saw in the back of our innings as well with the bat, how many runs you can score quickly. So yeah, we just fell short. [On the frustration of Ireland being competitive only in patches across the three games] I suppose it’s been quite frustrating over the three games that, again, I mentioned that we were in patches, but we did a lot of good stuff, but not quite enough often. [On the approach to chasing such a big score alongside Andy Balbirnie] Yeah, that’s the fun of it. You have to adapt. You know, you can be chasing 300, you can be chasing 350. Generally, I like to take the positive option and try and take on the bowlers. I think it probably offered a little bit as well. So that was the tricky bit. [On how the pitch influenced his approach during the chase] I think usually when you chase 350, you think it’s a completely flat pitch where you can just bat and play the ball along the ground and you’ll get the runs that way. But it felt like I had to take some of the risk today and take the bowlers on, and it was starting to work and then got out.
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