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Preview: The two-time World Cup winning West Indies team are undergoing the ignominy of going through the qualifiers to reach the ICC World Cup 2019.
However, they are off to a decent start winning both their matches so far to avoid any undue upset to the Carribean nation.
In their first qualifier, the Jason Holder-led team hit the ground running as Chris Gayle hammered his 23rd ODI century to propel the Windies to a mammoth 357/4 against United Arab Emirates. The UAE put up a solid fight but fell 60 runs short despite a valiant century by Rameez Shahzad.
File image of Jason Holder. AFP
While the 1st match seemed to be a walk in the park for the Windies side, they were briefly threatened in their second match against Papua New Guinea. Chasing down a total of 200, Windies lost four early wickets for just 58 runs before skipper Holder steadied the ship with a knock of 99.
The mercurial Windies side will be up against Ireland who are at the top of the table by winning both their matches and having a better run rate than Holder's side.
Ireland had a rain-marred start to their World Cup qualification, but they ended up winning their match against Netherlands by a 93-run margin.
The William Porterfield-led side continued their good run as they chased down PNG's score of 235 with considerable ease in the 2nd match. Porterfield played a captain's knock to lead his team to the win with an innings of 111.
With both these teams winning two match apiece, the winner of this clash determines the table toppers.
In the previous five matches, Windies have beaten Ireland thrice, with the most recent match being abandoned due to rain.
However, in the last full match played between these two teams, at the 2015 World Cup, Ireland got the better of the Windies side and they would hope for a repeat performance on Saturday at Harare.
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