Tim Murtagh said Ireland are in a good place ahead of their World Twenty20 opener against Oman on Wednesday despite falling to a six-wicket warm-up loss to Zimbabwe in Dharamsala on Saturday.

Hamilton Masakadza notched an unbeaten half-century, thrashing six sixes and three fours in accruing 68 not out from 49 balls to lead his side past their victory target of 156 with 13 balls to spare.

Slow left armer George Dockrell came in for particular punishment, conceding 17 in his first over to Masakadza, who also hit successive sixes off Boyd Rankin in what proved to be the penultimate over of the match.

Ireland had earlier made 155 for eight after being invited to bat first, Gary Wilson top-scoring with 38, while skipper Will Porterfield contributed 31.

However, Murtagh took the positives from the defeat and is confident Ireland have laid the groundwork to make their mark in the tournament proper.

“Ideal world you want to go into tournaments on the back of two or three wins and take the confidence from that but I don’t think we can dwell on that too much," he said.

"We’ve done some good things the last couple of months so we’re pretty confident going into Wednesday.

“Boyd [Rankin] gives us another dimension... a bit of experience as well. He’s played a lot of cricket now. It’s great to have him back in the camp, he’s slotted in pretty well. There’s some exciting times to come.

“We don't know a massive amount about Oman, we’ll do our research next three or four days. They’ve obviously got some talented cricketers and will be a threat.”

Ireland face Oman, Bangladesh and Holland in Group A, while Zimbabwe come up against Scotland, Afghanistan and Hong Kong in Group B.