Ireland confident ahead of ODI series

Ireland

Ireland captain William Porterfield is confident his team can upset Zimbabwe in their three-match ODI series that starts in Harare on Friday.

The African side will go into the series as marginal favourites as they are the Test playing nation but the teams are fairly evenly matched.

Porterfield says this will be good opportunity for their side to prove that they belong with the elite cricketing nations and gain important ranking points.

Matches between the sides have always been closely contested affairs, with Ireland just pipping Zimbabwe the last time they met, which was at the World Cup earlier this year.

Porterfield said: "It's a series away from home against a team that's ranked very close to us, so it's important because we want to keep progressing up the ladder.

"If we can get a series win here it's going to be great for ourselves and great for cricket in Ireland, and also good to put points on the board in terms of rankings.

"We're pretty similar on the table and they've generally been close games, here in Harare and at the World Cup, and we've had a tie as well. Both teams are pretty confident coming into this series that they can get that series win."

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