ICC World T20: Jubilant Oman hope to go all the way into Super 10 stage

Dharamsala: Amir Ali was indeed the toast of Oman’s historic victory over Ireland in the ICC World T20 at the HPCA Stadium here on Wednesday night. And so rightly he was named the man of the match.
At the presser later, Amir Ali, with team manager Jamil Zaidi as his interpreter, thanked the Almighty for what he did on Wednesday and said: “I am delighted to be the player who turned Oman’s historical World Cup debut into celebration and glory.
“I am happy that I could time the ball well and help Oman win the match,” said Amir, who had played such cameos for Oman in the past as well.
“After a great start, we wanted to win this match badly and thanks to Zeeshan Maqsood, Khawar Ali and Amir Ali, we made a great start to the tournament,” he said.
“This is fruit of all the hard work we have put in all these days, “ he added.
Skipper Sultan Ahmed conceded that he would have batted first had he won the toss, but later realised the dew factor also helped his team’s cause.
“I would have batted first had I won the toss,” said Sultan. “We had a plan to set a total of over 160 runs and then throttle them with good spin bowling.”
When asked with all the board members around will there be special announcements and party, Sultan said diplomatically: “We need to play two more matches. Making the next round is the main objective and we will continue with the same momentum.”
The skipper said all the players are in high spirits and “this opening win will surely take us a long way.”
Irish disappointed
Meanwhile, William Porterfield said: “We did not expect this to happen. The last over was beyond our control and I am really disappointed.”
The Irish skipper who said on Tuesday had said that you need just three wins to make the main round, on Wednesday said that he was still hopeful.
“In this format, anything can happen, I believe even if we win the next two games, we will be through,” said Porterfield.
He also did not regret the decision of batting first.
“To me the catch that stalled our opening partnership was a turning point and later on the dew made task difficult,”he said.