CRICKET: IRELAND CAPTAIN William Porterfield has called on his side to play with freedom and to leave nothing behind in India after their 44-run defeat to West Indies at the PCA Stadium yesterday left their chances of making the quarter-finals firmly in the category of long-shot.

The result, and Bangladesh’s stunning victory over England in Chittagong last night, dropped Ireland down to sixth place in Group B and they now require victories against South Africa and The Netherlands in Calcutta next week, allied to other results going their way, to have a chance of making it to the knockout stages.

Ireland looked set at one stage to chase down the 276 they needed for victory, needing 99 from 75 balls, with seven wickets left and two batsmen well ensconced.

But the loss of Ed Joyce for 84 and the controversial dismissal of Gary Wilson for 61 took the wind from Ireland’s sails, and they were bowled out for 231 with an over to spare.

“Today was a massive game for us, no doubt about that, if we had picked up two points here it would have put us in a great position,” said Porterfield, who sees no reason to fear South Africa in their next match on Tuesday.

“Four years ago, no one gave us a chance going out against Pakistan. We’re obviously going to play South Africa, who are one of the favourites, but we’ve been playing some good cricket, so there’s no reason we can’t go out there and win two games and leave everything on the pitch.

“We have to play with freedom and come hard at them,” added Porterfield.

The main talking point of the game came with the dismissal of Wilson, given out by leg-before by umpire Asoka de Silva despite the referral replays showing the ball had pitched outside the line of off-stump.

The Sri Lankan official deemed Wilson out as he was not playing a shot, a point Porterfield was keen to take up on.

“The word we got was that the on-field umpire went up to see if he hit the ball before it impacted the pad. Surely if you’re asking if it was pad first or bat first then you know he’s playing a shot.

“In my opinion they got it wrong and maybe they’ll come out and say they got it wrong, I don’t know.”

A frustrating day then for the Irish players, not helped by them also copping a 10 per cent fine of their match fees for a slow over rate. Porterfield, as captain, must shell out 20 per cent.