It's all come down to this
If you'd told Ireland's cricketers before the World Cup that they would go into their final Pool B game knowing victory would send them through to the quarter-finals they would have been pretty happy.
Since then, Ireland have already banked the three victories they might have hoped that would be enough but they go into battle against Pakistan tomorrow morning still needing a result against a team whose form has improved as the pool stage has developed.
The opposition
After a solid performance against the fearsome Indian bowling attack, Ireland's battling line-up will need to do even better to give themselves a chance against the in-form Pakistani seamers, who ripped through a fearsome South Africa line-up for just 202 runs.
There is plenty of pace and variety available to captain Misbah-ul-Haq, from the towering deliveries of the tallest player in international cricket, 7ft 1in Mohammad Irfan, to the 140km/h swing of Rahat Ali and the left armer Wahab Riaz. Shahid Afridi is rightly hailed for his lusty strikes with the bat but the veteran's leg spin is an underrated weapon and Afridi often picks up the key wicket just when a partnership is beginning to spin freely.
While Pakistan's bowlers have roared into top form, they have struggled with the bat, only surpassing 250 against the UAE. They have yet to record a century at this World Cup, with skipper Misbah has been the only one in any sort of consistent form with a trio of fifties to his name.
The ground
The 32,000-capacity Adelaide Oval is one of the grand old venues in international cricket and has already witnessed one big shock at this World Cup - Bangladesh's victory over England which sent Eoin Morgan and company home early. Pakistan have already played here, but came out on the wrong side of a pretty convincing defeat by arch-rivals India in their opening game. Sohail Khan, the one seam bowler we haven't mentioned yet, was one of the few to emerge from that game with credit, taking a superb five for 55.
Historically a superb batting track, Ireland could again opt to leave out spinner Andy McBrine in favour of seam bowler Stuart Thompson, who replaced him against India, or a return for Max Sorensen, who was dropped after a poor showing against South Africa. The ground itself lends itself to pull shots, with the boundaries square of the wicket much shorter than those straight ahead.
Irish players to watch
This is the big one and Ireland will need their big players to really step up. Based on the tournament so far, Ireland should be confident of restricting Pakistan to a reasonable total, therefore may look to chase, so keeping wickets in hand will be even more important than it has been throughout the World Cup. That puts a big responsibility on the top order of Will Porterfield, Paul Stirling (who has been getting out cheaply ever since his big score against West Indies, and in-form Ed Joyce to set a decent platform.
With the ball, Ireland will look to exploit any uneasiness in the Pakistan line-up, so some tight line-and-length stuff will be the order of the day for Alex Cusack and John Mooney, while George Dockrell and, if he plays, McBrine will hope to rattle through some inexpensive middle overs.
What they've said
The three games we have won, the batting has been superb. I think that win against Zimbabwe you probably wouldn’t realise how good the knocks were considering we had the worst of the conditions. I think it was really hard to bat on that pitch initially and I think we did really well and that probably wasn’t looked at as much as it should have been.
Obviously that great chase against the West Indies as well, so I think the batting has a huge amount of confidence and the bowling has really come on as the tournament has progressed. Cusie [Alex Cusack] has been brilliant coming in towards the death and that’s where we had some issues early on but he’s come back strong now with powerplay bowling at the death, and the rest of the guys have done well so I’m really looking forward to hopefully putting all that together in a win. - Irish spinner George Dockrell
The pacers are really bowling well. All of them are wicket-takers. All of them are aggressive bowlers. And that's what we need if we are not batting well. We need some really good backing by the bowling, and all the pacers are really doing their job getting wickets and putting pressure on the opposition. - Pakistan captain Misbah-ul-Haq
On social media
https://twitter.com/Aggerscricket/status/576647206880432128
https://twitter.com/LarryLeprechau/status/576583064765091840
The permutations
We discussed all the eventualities
here, and have been checking our weather forecasts regularly since.
There has been no change to the expected sunshine at Adelaide for Ireland vs Pakistan, but the rain that was forecast for the West Indies' must-win game in Napier looks set to hold off until Monday (Boo!).
While we aren't quite willing to make a prediction, we don't see Pakistan smashing a huge total, so if Ireland can bat their full allotment of 50 overs against a hungry bowling attack they will have a tremendous chance.
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