It's been a tough day for us having been beaten by eight wickets against the world champions India in Hamilton, New Zealand. It's certainly no disgrace though to lose to such a classy side who have strength and depth in all departments.

They showed just why they are one of the favourites to win the tournament outright with a clinical batting display to win with plenty of overs to spare. They have a superb batting line up which will serve them in good stead in the last eight.

They along with hosts Australia, New Zealand and South Africa are the top sides in the competition and it cpuld be any of them which emerge victorious in a few weeks in the final.

The decision to bat first today was in my opinion the correct one. The conditions were perfect for batting with a good pitch, blue skies overhead and a compact and fast scoring ground.

We went about setting the innings up in the same way as we've done throughout the competition. Paul Stirling and William Porterfield got us off to a terrific start with an 89 run opening stand in quick time. Their spinners tied us down a little but Niall O'Brien's run a ball 75 took us to 206 for 3 with 11 overs left and we should have kicked on to around 300.

It's indicative of how far Irish cricket has come in the last ten years that we were bitterly disappointed to have posted only 259, having lost wickets in clusters. It's something we've worked hard to eradicate and to be fair, we've posted quite a few decent partnerships in the event.

The atmosphere generated by the 10,000 plus sell-out crowd was electric and yet again it was encouraging to see and hear such wonderful support for ourselves.

While it's naturally disappointing to have lost this game, we can look forward now to a huge game on Sunday against Pakistan in Adelaide, with the winners securing a quarter-final berth.

We've had some success against Pakistan over the years, most notably in that St Patrick's Day epic in the 2007 World Cup in the West Indies. Paul Stirling has scored two centuries against them in recent years and Ed Joyce made one at Clontarf.

They have a number of romidable left-arm bowlers in their armoury, but their batting has been under a bit of pressure during the World Cup. It's going to be a pressure match for both teams but we have a lot of experience in our ranks now and we have the players to cope with it.

I'm expecting another high scoring affair in Adelaide which traditionally is a batsman friendly venue, and the forecast is for very warm weather. It could well be another epic run chase - what odds a fourth successful World Cup chase in excess of 300?

What a way that would be for us to make the quarter-finals!