{"id":251504,"date":"2026-01-18T18:45:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T18:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/251504\/"},"modified":"2026-01-18T18:45:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T18:45:09","slug":"orla-prendergast-gets-ireland-women-off-to-winning-start-in-world-cup-qualifying-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/251504\/","title":{"rendered":"Orla Prendergast gets Ireland women off to winning start in World Cup qualifying campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Orla Prendergast shone for Ireland. Photo: Peter Langan\/Sportsfile\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/3210509.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Orla Prendergast shone for Ireland. Photo: Peter Langan\/Sportsfile<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Orla Prendergast smashed 56 and followed up with four miserly overs in Kathmandu to get Ireland\u2019s T20 World Cup qualifying campaign off to a convincing start with a 41-run victory over Papua New Guinea.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Skipper Gaby Lewis won the toss, chose to bat, and led the expected charge with 42 off 25 balls, and when she fell lbw Prendergast took over, reaching her half-century with the second of her two sixes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Not for the first time, there was no acceleration at the end of the Ireland innings, with only 21 runs coming from the final four overs, but a total of 146-6 was always going to be too many for one of the Group A minnows.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Prendergast conceded just one wide in her first two overs and while the Pembroke all-rounder failed to take a wicket her figures of 0-9 left the player of the match adjudicator with a very easy decision to make.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Arlene Kelly (2-18) and Laura Delany (1-11) showed that their experience and pace-off seamers will be invaluable on the typically slow pitches in Nepal, while Aimee Maguire, Alana Dalzell and Jane Maguire took the other wickets to fall as the Pacific islanders closed on 105-6.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Next up for Ireland is another game they will be expected to stroll through the USA on Thursday before they round off their Group A matches against Bangladesh and Namibia. Three of the five will progress to the Super Six stage.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Meanwhile, Ireland U-19s will take on Sri Lanka in Windhoek on Monday in a must-win clash after losing their World Cup opener to Australia on Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Orla Prendergast shone for Ireland. Photo: Peter Langan\/Sportsfile Orla Prendergast smashed 56 and followed up with four miserly&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251505,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[27606,61,60,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-251504","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-david-townsend","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}