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| July 10, 2005 | Sunday | Jumadi-us-Sani 2, 1426 |
Bermuda qualify for World Cup after 26 years of trying
BELFAST (Ireland), July 9: Bermuda, an island of only 66,000 inhabitants, made history on Thursday by qualifying for their first cricket World Cup after reaching the semifinals of the ICC Trophy.
Their eighth appearance in the ICC event proved lucky as they trounced USA by 113 runs. Ranked bottom-ranked of the three competing teams from the Americas region, Bermuda booked their ticket for the mega event to be staged in the West Indies in 2007 by finishing second behind hosts Ireland in Group ‘A’.
Apart from the Caribbean adventure, Bermuda were also guaranteed US$500,000 worth of development money, not to mention the newly-acquired one-day status.
Ireland also made the World Cup proper for the first time in their history after brothers Ed and Dominick Joyce both chalked up half-centuries to steer the ICC Trophy hosts to victory over Denmark.
Ireland went into the game knowing only a heavy defeat and a big win for Bermuda over the USA would scupper their bid to reach one-day cricket’s premier tournament. But in the end, they were comfortably home by 73 runs.
Scotland and Canada also qualified for the West Indies tournament by grabbing the top two places in Group ‘B’, leaving Holland, Namibia, Denmark and the United Arab Emirates battling for the remaining one slot.
With the Scotland versus Holland match at that stage still in the balance, Canada knew it could be crucial to their chances of a top two finish for them to bowl out Papua New Guinea cheaply and Umar Bhatti and Don Maxwell made important early breakthroughs.
Mahuru Dai held out for 52 runs as Papua New Guinea edged past the 100 mark. They were all out for 159 but, with Holland losing to Scotland, net-run-rate was no longer an issue and Canada had sealed a place at a second consecutive ICC Cricket World Cup.
All of the group stage matches took place in the north of Ireland. The action now moves to the south where the semifinals and final will be held. The semifinals were being played on Saturday while the final is at Clontarf near Dublin on Wednesday.
Thursday’s results:
Group ‘A’:
At Waringstown: Bermuda beat USA by 113 runs.
BERMUDA 311-8 in 50 overs (J.J. Tucker 132, I.H. Romaine 44, D.A. Minors 41; S.J. Massiah 2-20); USA 198 in 36.2 overs (B.S. Bartley 52, C.B. Lambert 33, L.C. Romero 30, S.J. Massiah 26; D.M. Leverock 4-39, S. Mukuddem 3-30).
At Bangor: Ireland beat Denmark by 73 runs.
IRELAND 222 in 49.4 overs (E.C. Joyce 60, D.I. Joyce 50, P.G. Gillespie 40; A.B. Chawla 3-42, D. Borchersen 3-42, H.S. Hansen 2-29); DENMARK 149 in 39.3 overs (B. Singh 58, R.J.A. Malcolm-Hansen 21; A.R. White 3-17, D.T. Johnston 3-39, P.J.K. Mooney 2-22).
At Lurgan: UAE beat Uganda by 63 runs.
UAE 201 in 50 overs (Naeemuddin Aslam 76, Arshad Ali 26; J. Olwenyi 4-37, F. Nsubuga 2-32); UGANDA 138 in 46.3 overs (K. Legesi 39, J. Olwenyi 35, N. Patel 21; Mohammad Tauqir 3-19, Javed Ismail 2-24, Ali Asad Abbas 2-25).
Group ‘B’:
At Stormont: Scotland beat Holland by 98 runs.
SCOTLAND 221 in 48.5 overs (C.V. English 44, P.J.C. Hoffman 36, G.M. Hamilton 32, J.G. Williamson 25 not out, D.R. Brown 20; E. Schiferli 3-39, J.F. Kloppenburg 2-26, R.N. ten Doeschate 2-37); HOLLAND 123 in 39.4 overs (R.N. ten Doeschate 24; R.R. Watson 4-24, J.A.R. Blain 2-20).
At Downpatrick: Canada beat Papua New Guinea by 160 runs.
CANADA 319-4 in 50 overs (I.S. Billcliff 102 not out, J.M. Davison 62, D.R. Chumney 50, Z.E. Surkari 45, Sunil Dhaniram 26; G.G. Keimelo 3-66); PAPUA NEW GUINEA 159 in 39.2 overs (M.D. Dai 52, I Baeau 22; Umar Bhatti 3-25, J.M. Davison 3-28).
At Comber: Namibia beat Oman by six wickets.
OMAN 170-9 in 50 overs (Awal Khan 60, Mohammad Asif 23, J.V. Redkar 22; D.B. Kotze 3-39, K.B. Burger 2-26); NAMIBIA 173-4 in 41.2 overs (A.J. Burger 49, G. Snyman 43 not out, R. Walters 28; R. Sharma 2-41).—Agencies
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