A decent crowd, considering that the ODI was played on a work day, gathered at the Benoni cricket stadium to see some of the world’s best players, like Australian captain Steve Smith, master-blaster David Warner and Usman Khawaja.
After crashing to a massive defeat against South Africa at the same ground on Sunday, September 25, few gave the number-one ranked Associate nation any chance of upsetting the world champions, even without some of their top bowlers in the side.
CLICK HERE for the SA vs Ireland report.
Winning the toss and batting first, Ireland collapsed from 121/2 to 198 all out.
Paul Stirling gave the Ireland team a strong platform as he challenged the Australian bowlers in the early overs.
John Anderson helped Sterling to get the scoreboard ticking, with 39 runs from 49 deliveries, but, as soon as he departed the wheels came off and the men in green slumped, with eight wickets lost for just 77 runs.
Exciting leg-spinner Adam Zampa bamboozled the Irish batsmen with his variations.
His bowling figures of 3/37 saw him become the leading ODI wicket-taker of the year.
With the bat, Warner stuck to his aggressive style at the top of the order and lay into the Irish bowlers with a quick-fire 30-ball 48 runs.
Khawaja (82 not out from 77 balls), partnering Warner, made full use of the opportunity to get back to form in the one-off ODI.
Australian skipper Steve Smith (59 not out from 74), who went back home mid-way through the recent Sri Lankan tour, scored a steady 50 to guide his side home by nine wickets in just 30.1 overs.
Smith and Khawaja put together an unbeaten 126-run stand for the second wicket.
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