Bridgetown: World Cup debutants Ireland hope they will recover from their mauling by defending champions Australia to beat overachievers Bangladesh in Sunday’s meeting when little more than pride is at stake.

“Our confidence has been bruised after the annihilation by Australia, but we’ll pick ourselves up for the next game against Bangladesh,” says Ireland’s coach Adrian Birrell, whose team lost by nine wickets after being bowled out for 91.

Birrell asserted that Ireland were looking to cap their World Cup outing by winning the contest against the other unheralded team and maybe avoid finishing last in the Super Eight.

Both Bangladesh and Ireland emerged as surprise Super Eight qualifiers after posting stunning wins against two former world champions, India and Pakistan in the group stage.

Crushed on Friday by Australia, Ireland find themselves in a similar as Bangladesh at the start of the Super Eightthe equivalent of a quarter final league.

Bangladesh lost by 10 wickets to Australia and then suffered a nine-wicket loss to New Zealand.

Then they recovered to stun South Africa to make this their most memorable World Cup.

Aspiring to finish among the top-six, Bangladesh will be looking for their second Super Eight win on Sunday.

“This is the most exciting period in Bangladesh cricket, we’ve had a very good World Cup and now want to win this game too,” says Bangladesh captain Habibul Bashar.

“We want another win to finish our best World Cup in a befitting manner,” said Bashar, whose team also has to play hosts West Indies on Thursday.

“Our spinners have bowled well in all conditions, they can even deliver on green-tops.”

Bashar said he had seen Ireland’s matches on television and found them to be good side with some fine batsmen and a nippy pace attack.

Ireland also feel this game offers them the best chance to pull off a victory after being competitive in several matches.

Captain Trent Johnston said tackling Bangladesh’s spinners would be a crucial factor in this encounter.

“Bangladesh have quality spinners and we’ve been squeezed by the spinners. This will be a different sort of challenge,” said

TEAMS

Bangladesh (from): Habibul Bashar (captain), Shahriar Nafees, Tamim Iqbal, Aftab Ahmed, Saqibul Hasan, Mohammed Ashraful, Mushfiqur Rahim, Mohammed Rafique, Abdur Razzak, Mashrafe Mortaza, Farhad Reza, Shahadat Hossain, Syed Rasel, Rajin Saleh, Javed Omar.

Ireland (from): Trent Johnston (captain), Jeremy Bray, William Porterfield, Eoin Morgan, Niall ’Brien, Andre Botha, Kevin ’Brien, Andrew White, Kyle McCallan, Dave Langford-Smith, Boyd Rankin, Kenneth Carroll, Peter Gillespie, John Mooney, Paul Mooney.

Umpires: Steve Bucknor (WI), Simon Taufel (Aus). TV: Billy Bowden (Nzl).

Match Referee: Jeff Crowe (Nzl)

Match Starts: 7pm (IST).