IRELAND’S players got a taste of what they can expect at next year’s World Cup finals as their acclimatisation tour ended with a third straight defeat.

Jesse Ryder, one of the biggest hitters in world cricket, launched a single-handed assault on the Irish bowlers and his stunning 136, from just 57 balls, with 18 fours and eight sixes, left the tourists’ modest 248 for eight totally inadequate, as Otago completed a three wickets victory with more than 18 overs to spare.

Ryder played in the same Ireland team as Kevin O’Brien and Gary Wilson back in 2007 but before failing to turn up for a third match, he had underwhelmed with scores of two and one.

Not so yesterday in Lincoln, Christchurch as he treated the Ireland bowlers with disdain, bringing up his 50 in just 16 balls in the fourth over, his 100 from 39 at the start of the 13th and he was back in the pavilion after pulling George Dockrell to deep mid-wicket in only the 18th with Otago already on a staggering 186. In all he hit 18 fours and 8 sixes (120) in boundaries.

He did give two chances, a thunderously difficult one on 31 to Stuart Thompson in the covers and a much simpler one to John Mooney on 125 which didn’t prove costly, but the damage had been done. As captain Kevin O’Brien said: “it was an unbelievable innings and was the difference between the sides.”

Indeed it was because apart from 53 from former North Down professional Iain Robertson, no-one else reached 25.

Craig Young bore the brunt early on and wasn’t recalled after his four overs went for 51 but he still finished the tour not only as the leading wicket-taker, with 11, but with comfortably the best average (21.5). The next best was Dockrell with seven wickets at 34.3 but he was outbowled in the last two games by Donemana’s Andy McBrine who also hit a bright and breezy 43 yesterday to keep alive his hopes of making the final 15.

Graham McCarter (seven wickets) and Peter Chase (nine) had an identical average and there is probably only one place for them with the latter still favourite to get it.

The batsmen, right to the end, generally disappointed although Andrew Balbirnie and Andrew Poynter slugged it out yesterday for probably only one place in the World Cup squad.

The pair put on 75 for the third wicket with Poynter the more fluent but Balbirnie’s second successive half century nudged him ahead of Niall O’Brien as the tour’s leading run-scorer with 233, having played two more innings than Ireland’s most experienced batsman.

However, O’Brien was the only member of the likely top five which will face the West Indies in the World Cup opener to finish the tour – Paul Stirling and Ed Joyce did not even start it, William Porterfield left early and Gary Wilson was injured in his second game.

Kevin O’Brien insisted that “every player that returns for the World Cup will be better for the experience of the last four weeks” but the bottom line is the absentees were sorely missed hence a tour record of played seven, won two, lost five.

Lincoln: Ireland XI 248-8 (50 overs, A Balbirnie 59, A McBrine 43 not out, A Poynter 38, S Poynter 32 not out) Otago 251-7 (31.5 overs, J Ryder 136, I Robertson 53, A McBrine 2-38, G McCarter 2-46). Otago won by 3 wickets