CONFIDENCE is currently sky-high for George Dockrell after the Somerset spinner’s three wickets inspired Ireland to a four-wicket victory over West Indies in their opening World Cup group game – and the 22-year-old is hoping to carry his good form into tomorrow’s game against the UAE in Brisbane (3.30am GMT).

“It’s nice to start as well as we did, both personally and as a team, obviously there’s some big players and some big hitters in that West Indies team so to have grabbed a few wickets was really pleasing,” Dockrell told Cricket Ireland’s official website.

“It definitely gives you confidence when you’re nailing your skills and you’re bowling to those good batsmen on what was a very good pitch as well. That gives me a lot of confidence going into this UAE game.”

Dockrell accounted for Chris Gayle, Marlon Samuels and Denesh Ramdin to finish with 3-50 from 10 overs in Nelson last Monday – and the left-arm spinner was pleased with the way he bowled at some of the game’s top players.

“I’ve played against him (Gayle) in the Champions League in 2011 in India and he hit me for quite a few sixes then, so I knew I couldn’t really stray too far up to him into his reach, which I did one of the times and he did hit me for six,” he said.

“I thought I bowled quite well to him and pulled it back from him and got the wicket in the end, so I was really happy about that.

“It was a nice start but there are a lot of games to come, both personally and as a team so looking forward to getting into it now.

“It’s a fantastic stadium, really looking forward to seeing what the atmosphere is like.

“There’s been a good few Irish arriving over the past few days.

“Also it’s quite a big pitch and ground so it will be interesting to see how that plays out, I suppose I’ll be looking forward to it as a spinner, trying to use the big boundaries and trying to get people to hit me.”