Ireland light up Chattogram

Dave Sihra (Dave Meets Ball - Substack)

It was a performance for the ages in Game One with big nights out for the Brothers Tector, Matthew Humphreys and Mark Adair - can the T20 World Cup start tomorrow?

Ireland 181 for 4 (H Tector 69*, T Tector 32, Tanzim 2-41) beat Bangladesh 142 for 9 (Hridoy 83*, Humphreys 4-13, McCarthy 3-23) by 39 runs

Ireland’s innings was all about the two Tectors, but was it maybe an episode starring the wrong brother? It was all set up. This series has strangely all come together for Tim Tector. 

The opening batter has shown some frighteningly good form for the Leinster Lightning in the IP20 over the last two years. Now with Ross Adair’s injury he has a massive opportunity to bat in his desired spot just ahead of a T20 World Cup.

There were points during the powerplay where you just thought, wait hold on will Tim Tector do this? Could he really force out Ross Adair with something absolutely remarkable.

Tim’s innings of 32 (19) gave Ireland exactly what they needed but you sensed maybe he would do something utterly unique like Ross’s century against South Africa - who himself filled in for an injured Lorcan Tucker.

Alas it was not to be. Tim played some extremely violent pulls with just a hint of Brendan McCullum in those hands. Remember him? Tim Tector gets his blade through the ball in a way that probably singles him out among his team mates.

Brother Harry, with 69 not out off 45, then took it all on himself with the dismissal of Tim and in the process passed 4,000 runs across formats for Ireland. The visitors really looked to be heading beyond 200, however Mustafizur Rahman bowled brilliantly to keep Ireland from running away with the spoon.

Mark Adair sparkles

He just settled right in and it’s exactly what you’d expect from the senior seamer. First ball after knee surgery and Mark Adair is of course right back on a sixpence, lovely seam position and a hint of swing.

After two overs Sparky had 2 for 3 with a wicket maiden in his first. God they’ve missed him. During the two tests he mightn’t have found the same swing but even still he’s just become such a huge competitor for this side. Knee surgery? 165 days out of action? Second ball back he has his first wicket.

It was certainly interesting having Adair and Humphreys opening the bowling and both NCU men getting that lovely movement through the air. Matthew Humphreys as a left arm spinner with the occasional arm ball is probably not someone you’d expect to have such a mastery of swing bowling, but hey he’s constantly surprising us these days.

Matthew Humphreys vs Josh Little?

What a bowling performance from Matthew Humphreys with 4-13. If it was the Tector show in Ireland’s innings with the bat, then Matthew made it mostly about him - with interruptions from Sparky. It’s really Matthew’s world and we just live in it. Or that’s how it’s starting to seem with these remarkable T20I spells.

Josh Little (0-40) didn’t have his best day out but the outing will definitely have done him good after returning to the side from injury.

The left arm quick is now sporting the same hairband that Humphreys has been styling since the start of the tour. But does he feel threatened by the Lisburn man?

One thing that was very noticeable were the speeds Matthew Humphreys bowled. At one point in his third over, he’d only bowled one delivery under 100km/h and this from his short run. What if we let Matt run in from the sightscreen? It’s maybe worth seeing the results because he already gets appreciable swing off that arm ball. And let’s not forget that he’s just a year bowling that delivery. Rapid learning.

The left arm spinner was also on a hat-trick with his final delivery and we got the full celebrappeal with the Rishal Hossain dismissal. Nasum Ahmed overbalanced next ball and we were treated to some Lorcan Tucker glovework that was nearly too quick for the stumping.

Drink it in. You don’t often get nights like these. Bangladesh will come back hard and head coach Phil Simmons won’t be happy with his side’s performance which didn’t really reflect the margin of defeat. It could have been much, much worse.

Ireland dropped some catches at the end, but their overall tempo with bat and ball was very impressive after all the effort put into the two tests just before. Onto Game Two on Saturday.

Can the World Cup start tomorrow?

Final note

Matthew Humphreys was getting so much body into those arm balls. There were some stock off-spin balls in there too but when he’s bowling to right handers he’s delivering from so wide on the crease. There’s no attempt to get over the ball like he did in the tests. There’s definitely quite a bit of Scotland’s Mark Watt in this mode of attack and both bowlers started out as left arm wrist spinners funnily enough.

It’s interesting to compare all that body in his action to a TV piece from the tests where commentators noted he wasn’t following through enough and possibly leaving out some revs compared to the Bangladeshi spinners.

Now getting those extra revs is very different from whizzing in skiddy arm balls. But today Matthew Humphreys today showed he’s developing on the job at warp speed. It’s another step on from that 2-16 against the West Indies at Bready in June. What will he work on next?

This article was originally published on Dave Sihra’s Substack: Dave Meets Ball