Andrew Balbirnie: If Ireland lose badly, people will say we don't deserve to be here

Balbirnie's Ireland are not treating their Super 12 matches as "free hits" with nothing to lose. Instead, they are proving that "teams outside the big six or seven are very good"

Andrew Balbirnie has dismissed the notion that Ireland are playing in a pressure free environment at the T20 World Cup, stating people will question whether they "deserve to be here" if they lose heavily.

Ireland came through the first round to reach the Super 12s and bounced back from a nine-wicket defeat against Sri Lanka to defeat England by five runs (DLS) at the MCG. Their subsequent clash with Afghanistan ended in no result due to the weather.

Their victory over England is one of several results which has been considered an upset. In the first round, Namibia beat Sri Lanka by 55 runs while both Scotland and Ireland defeated West Indies, and only last night, Zimbabwe hung on to defeat Pakistan by one run in their Super-12 encounter.

But Balbirnie does not believe his side nor Zimbabwe, the Netherlands or any others can treat their World Cup matches as "free hits".

^{Ireland's players celebrate with fans after beating England [Robert Cianflone/Getty Images]}

"The free hit word, I've seen a bit of it," he said. "I understand it, but at the same time if we lose badly, a lot of people say we don't deserve to be here. That's a different kind of pressure.

"We don't like using the term free hit because we want to go out and play, even if it's the first round or the second round, we want to play a certain way. We have as much to lose in this tournament. From our point of view, it's a level playing field when we take the field and we have to perform that way too."

Addressing the number of unexpected results, he continued: "We're good teams. We might not be recognised because we don't play as often as other teams on the big stage or in front of the cameras as often, but I think these tournaments consistently show that teams outside the big six or seven are very good cricket teams.

"Zimbabwe, they beat us in the first game in the first round and they're a very good cricket team. We're a very good team, and the teams that didn't qualify, like Scotland West Indies, are good cricket teams.

"That's why it's important for us to play on this stage as often as possible to showcase those skills and show we can compete with these teams and beat these teams. We've played a pretty exciting brand of cricket so far, which is as important as getting results.

"T20 is a format [with] so many leagues around the world, not just the big leagues, so lots of players are playing T20 cricket and getting experiences and exposure and learning new things. You've got to keep up with the trends of the game and our results over the last week show we're doing a good job so far."

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