No captain or head coach at the ground and the stand-in skipper a late arrival in Jamaica after spending 10 days in isolation. No problem for Ireland as they added West Indies to their memorable World Cup Super League wins over England and South Africa.

Now their aim is to claim a first ODI series win since July 2019 when the teams meet for the third and final game of the series tomorrow at Sabina Park (live on BT Sport, 2.30pm) which is fast becoming one of Ireland’s favourite venues.

On the ground where their journey on the world stage started with victory over Pakistan in 2007, Ireland recorded their third success – they also won a T20 international on their last visit in 2014 – by five wickets with 21 balls to spare, after a 90-minute delay for rain.

The interruption undoubtedly eased Ireland’s task as a target of 230 in 50 overs was reduced to 168 from 36 when the rain arrived, with Ireland on 157 for four off 31.2 overs but any DLS adjustment favours the team who were on top at the break and the tourists had put in the hard yards in the first 79 overs.

As Paul Stirling, leading Ireland for the first time in a one-day international in place of Andrew Balbirnie, admitted afterwards it was certainly not the complete performance. They conceded an unacceptable 28 wides –their most in a ODI – and the last two West Indies wickets added 86 – so they are still striving for consistency.
We have struggled in the past but we now have a real opportunity to put our stamp on this series and win it,” said Stirling.

“There’s no doubt we got the best end of the stick twice, winning the toss (and the benefit of the early bowling conditions) so this is not the finished article and if it is we are in trouble!

“The last 10 overs in our bowling we can do better because if we had finished it earlier our chase would have been a lot easier. There’s a lot to improve on which is really exciting.”

Claiming another victory over a top eight side, however, showed up more positives than negatives.

Andy McBrine, named man of the match, proved he is a genuine all-rounder, with 35 runs and four wickets, Craig Young continued his purple patch with the ball with another three wickets taking his tally to 19 in his last nine ODIs, but best of all, 22-year-old Harry Tector is now making the No 4 position his own, his undefeated 54 his sixth half-century in his last nine innings.

“I can’t praise Harry enough,” said Stirling. “He is in world-class form, backing up performance after performance. Whenever people stand up like that at such an early age he is only going to get better and better and I’m really looking forward to seeing where he is at in five years time.”

Ireland could also be boosted by the return of Simi Singh tomorrow with Curtis Campher or Mark Adair the most likely to give way, the latter who could be an injury doubt again after hobbling off just before the end of Thursday’s game.