William Porterfield calls for his men to fire against the home side at Lord's

William Porterfield and his men suffered a terrible defeat at the hands of Eoin Morgan and co in the first One-Day International of the three-match series weeks ahead of the Champions Trophy 2017. The Irish side after a bright start went downhill from 81/2 and ended up crashing to a total of 126 runs in their 50 overs.

The English side in response cruised to the total with seven wickets to spare in under 30 overs to hand themselves a 1-0 lead in the series. After the defeat, Irish skipper Porterfield is hoping for an inspiration from playing against England at the iconic Lord’s for the first time after the defeat at Bristol.

“You don’t become bad players overnight. It was one bad game, one bad day at the office. Losing the way we did isn’t ideal but it’s a mental thing to turn it around,” Porterfield said. “We will have an open and honest review, park the game and leave it in Bristol. I think it should be pretty easy to park it once we get to Lord’s – you have to be able to get fired up for a game at the Home of Cricket.”

The Irish side, before the tour of England struggled against the fellow associate nation Afghanistan, who outwitted them in the series in India. The skipper also refused to accept that the team was out of their depth against the English team who are amongst the favourites to the Champions Trophy title.

What would be interesting to see is the Irish batsman getting off to a good total after the initial blast. “I’d never use the phrase ‘out of depth’,” Porterfield said. “I think we started off pretty positively, the way the two lads went about it and we threatened to rebuild after we lost those two wickets in two overs.”

“We wouldn’t necessarily have envisaged that spin would do the damage and, not taking anything away from Rashid, we should have played it a lot better. That’s something we need to put right for Sunday mentally,” he added.

The skipper also mentioned that they were aware that there would be a lot more of googlies thrown at the batsmen than the regular leg-spinner, to which the batsmen weren’t quite up to the task. Porterfield also appreciated the way the offie Joe Root operated, saying that he potentially is a weapon that many teams underestimate.

It would take a lot from this Irish side to come back and win against the English side after their dismal opener in Bristol.