It's easy to forget that this wasn't even a full-strength Irish team. They are without Tim Murtagh, missing due to a broken foot and may now never play in a World Cup, and Boyd Rankin, no longer eligible following his sojourn with England. Gary Wilson, despite an excellent season with Surrey, must be facing questions about his place following almost three years of unmitigated ODI failure with the bat, and cannot claim to be irreplaceable with the gloves either. As such, Max Sorensen found himself in the playing eleven, despite not being one of the selectors' preferred fifteen players for the tournament.
Despite all of these flaws and pitfalls, Ireland were the better side. It didn't look like it would be the case after the acclimatisation tour, the Randwick-Petersham defeat or the Scottish debacle, but Bangladesh and now the West Indies have fallen prey to the Irish in the last week. Their next opponent is the UAE in nine days' time.
Yet it will be almost impossible for all three of those sides to play at the next World Cup. If they do, then it will be because Zimbabwe have mustered an unlikely assent to the top-eight in the rankings, while Ireland and Scotland prevail in alien Bangladeshi conditions to qualify for the green seamers of England. In fairness to Ireland, their quartet of spinners (Dockrell, McBrine, Stirling, Balbirnie) looks to be good enough to achieve that. Were all three to make it, however, there would be no place for Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Netherlands, Papua New Guinea or the West Indies at cricket's flagship event. Such is the lunacy of the ten-team round robin.
The best way to show the ICC that they are at best chronically misguided would be for all of these teams to cause upsets. If Afghanistan and Bangladesh (or even the UAE) could chip in with a big result or two, then that would strengthen the case still further, not that it was a weak one to begin with.
The more cynical amongst us might point out that 31st December 2012 was a convenient date for commercial reasons: the positions of India (seed three) and Pakistan (seed six) ensured that they were in the same group. By the time the groups were announced, on 30th July 2013, India (ranked #1) and Pakistan (ranked #6) would have been consigned to separate groups, despite the timing - straight after the annual update - being the ideal time to harvest ranking data.
By creating a ten-team round robin for 2019, the ICC has ensured not only that there will be a guaranteed India-Pakistan game, but also that all three of Australia, England and India will play each other, and every other commercially lucrative Full Member. Who cares about development when there's cash at stake?
But for now, let's focus on the cricket. We have at least five teams (Afghanistan, Ireland, Scotland, UAE and Zimbabwe) playing for their own survival, and for the survival of all teams ranked below them, trying to stop a runaway gravy train fuelled by short-term capitalism. And at this early stage, they seem to be making a pretty good fist of it.