Ireland made a mockery of their “minnows” tag with a comfortable four-wicket win over West Indies.

An upset in terms of world rankings, Ireland never really looked in trouble against their Test-playing opponents and chased down the 304-run target with four overs to spare.

Having reduced West Indies to 87 for five, Ireland then struggled in the face of Lendl Simmons and Darren Sammy’s counter-attack, with the West Indies batsmen putting on 154 for the sixth wicket.

Simmons scored 102, Sammy added 89, and with a quick-fire 27 at the end from Andre Russell, West Indies scored 124 runs in the final ten overs and eventually finished on 304 for seven

In response, Paul Stirling, with 92, and Ed Joyce, with 84, put on 106 for the second wicket after the loss of William Porterfield. When Stirling was out, Niall O’Brien, who scored an unbeaten 79, joined Joyce at the crease and the pair took their side to within sight of victory, reaching 273, before Joyce’s was third wicket to fall.

The three wickets that fell at the end of the innings was nothing more than a blip, and O’Brien, and John Mooney took their side across the finish line.

William Porterfield, the Ireland captain, said afterwards that he did not think the result was an upset at all, and given his side’s previous record in World Cups, he may have a point.

West Indies become the fourth Test scalp that Ireland have taken at the World Cup, after previous victories over Pakistan and Bangladesh in 2007, and against England in 2011.

“I hate the term upsets from minnows or Associates,” Porterfield said. “I don’t see it as an upset.

“We came into the game prepared to win, we’re prepared to go into the UAE game prepared to win and then South Africa and so on.

“We’re looking to pick up two points in every game, and as long as we’re doing the right things and building up to that, then we’re happy.”

Upset or not, the victory was well deserved, and did little to suggest that the struggles that West Indies are going through are any closer to being over.

A poor display in the field was summed up by the reaction, or lack of, to Jerome Taylor’s dismissal of Andy Balbirnie, the fourth Ireland wicket to fall. Ireland still needed 20 runs to win at that stage, but none of Taylor’s team-mates celebrated the wicket.

“Yeah, today we took them for granted as we fielded,” Sammy said. “So I can’t really pinpoint on what exactly. We just were not putting in a good game of cricket.

“Our bowlers have been going for some sticks over the last few games and today was no different against an experienced Irish team where you know they had a game plan and they stuck to it.”