THERE was never any question of a recount at Taunton yesterday where an Ireland team that entertained thoughts of winning a second Benson & Hedges Cup win were buried under a Somerset landslide of 221 runs.
A bright innings of exactly 50 off 42 balls by Andy Patterson brought a little cheer late in the day but there were few others straws to grasp.
Patterson (21), enjoying a battle - with bat and verbally - against England bowler Andy Caddick, hit nine adventurous fours, and a six over square leg off Graham Rose to confirm his enormous potential.
The beauty of watching the 21 year old from Belfast is not simply the clean way he strikes the ball but the unusual range of his shots and the impudence that goes into them.
A powerful sweep past square leg brought up Patterson's 50, but next ball he popped up a simple catch to extra cover to become the fourth victim of Mushtaq Ahmed, who claimed figures of 7-24 less than 24 hours after flying in from Sri Lanka.
Hansie Cronje fared badly with the bat, all but running himself out without a run and then playing back to a Mushtaq googly that kept low and hit Cronje on the pad when it could only have missed the stumps by going underneath.
The irony of a Pakistani dismissing a South African to decide Ireland's fate against Somerset was not missed among a decent crowd who no doubt left wondering how Middlesex had been beaten earlier in the week.
A marginal performance at best by Ireland will have to be improved upon when they take on Glamorgan on Monday because defeat in Cardiff will almost certainly end any dreams of a place in the quarter finals.
