Anatomy of a spell - Georgina Dempsey's breakout display
Ireland's all-rounder explains how she took 4-54 vs the world champions
Georgina Dempsey’s display with the ball on Tuesday, returning figures of 4-54 in 10 overs against the world champions Australia, could well be looked back on as her breakout performance.
Ireland ultimately lost the ODI in Clontarf by 153 runs, a margin that can only be described as thumping. But Dempsey’s figures, Amy Hunter’s innings and a decent ground fielding display (catching still leaves a bit to be desired) have given Ed Joyce and his coaching staff enough ammunition to keep spirits high ahead of Friday’s series finale.
Dempsey has now played 21 internationals, 10 ODIs and 11 T20s, without ever really being a settled fixture in the Irish side. This has been to the frustration of many, given the talent spotted by those who have worked with Dempsey from a young age.
The narrative surrounding the Phoenix all-rounder early in her international career is that she has that intangible ability to make things happen with the ball but can also be a touch expensive, a trade-off as old as time. Yet her numbers don’t really bear this out. In ODIs, an average of a dismissal every 37.3 runs and 45 deliveries doesn’t suggest a regular wicket taker. Her economy of a hair under 5 (4.89) means she is not an expensive bowler either.
In T20Is, the story is similar: average 36.6, strike rate 31, economy 7. Dempsey doesn’t take more than one wicket per spell but she also does not get hit out of the attack.
However, this year’s Super Series has been a different story. Across five matches, Dempsey has taken 6 wickets at a much lower average of 16.8, strike rate of 21.7 and her economy has dropped to 4.7. Granted, caveats about the standard of opposition apply when compared to the international game.
The potential to be a regular wicket taker has been attached to Dempsey for a while now, despite still being only 18 (she turns 19 on Saturday, according to Cricinfo). If she can do that at international level an economical rate, that’s a bonus.
Having done so in the Super Series this year, Tuesday was the first time she’s been that sort of bowler in one spell for Ireland. In her 21 internationals, this was only the second time Dempsey has taken more than one wicket in an innings, the other occasion coming in a T20I vs Australia last year up in Bready (2-35).
How Dempsey went about getting her 4 wickets in Clontarf displays the ability that should now see her get an extended run in the side. First up was Alyssa Healy, the Aussie captain who, granted, hasn’t been in very good form of late, but was still dismissed by a delivery that would have troubled most batters.
Dempsey normally shapes the ball away, but this ball didn’t move much in the air, instead jagging back between bat and pad. Healy has a tendency to fall over when coming onto the front foot, meaning she is vulnerable to the ball moving back. Ireland had a clear plan, it worked last year when Dempsey removed Healy LBW, and although it wasn’t necessarily a case of Healy falling over on Tuesday, the ploy to bowl straight still worked.
“Off the seam I do get that movement back in,” explained Dempsey when asked to discuss her scalps. “It’s not really something I work on, it just kind of happens. I try and bowl as straight as I can and hopefully it comes down there.”
Next up, quite literally as the next wicket came one delivery later, Tahlia McGrath chopped on.
“She’s a great player, I was just thinking ‘hit the stumps here, go again,’” says Dempsey. The plan might have been to go straight, but that wasn’t what was executed. Dempsey was fortunate to see a short and wide delivery take the inside edge and rebound onto the stumps. You take them whatever way they come.
Wicket number 3 was Ellyse Perry. After flaying Ireland for 91, albeit not without chances early in her innings, Perry fell short of a 100 when driving Dempsey aerially into the covers, Gaby Lewis taking a good, low catch.
Again, Dempsey probably gets away with a touch of width here. But the length is key. The over previous, Perry went to drive a ball that wasn’t quite full enough, checking out of the shot at the last minute and instead nudging it for one. This time, with a similar length delivery, Perry goes through with the drive and pays the price when she can’t control it. Dempsey is rewarded for hitting her length.
Wicket number 4 was arguably the pick of the lot given how it was set up. Bowling to Ash Gardner, another batter who had done significant damage to Ireland, Dempsey decided to bowl three slower balls in a row. Her pace-off delivery of choice is an off-cutter.
Dempsey was bowling to her field, with fine leg up and boundary riders out on the leg side. The ball before getting out, Gardner tried to ramp over fine leg but there was no pace on the slower ball. The next delivery, she tries to take on the long leg side boundary, can’t hold up her stroke long enough to make contact with another cutter, and is duly bowled.
“It was definitely my plan going in, to bowl my slowies at the death,” said Dempsey of the dismissal. “Obviously she didn’t get the ramp away but I just thought ‘keep going with it, hopefully it will work.’
“Pace on - they’re a great side - can be a little bit risky at the death. Pace off, see if I can get a catch in the deep, or get a bowled.”
The middle two dismissals of McGrath and Perry can realistically be put down to variance. Batters chop on playing questionable shots sometimes, or drive at wider deliveries they shouldn’t. You could say they are examples of Dempsey’s ability to take wickets out of nowhere, but it’s difficult to quantify that intangible.
The first and fourth dismissals, those are the ones to get excited about. An outswing bowler who can nip the ball back in to the right-hander? Ireland don’t have many of those, let alone at Dempsey’s pace. A good off-cutter that Dempsey can control and bowl it straight, and use it as often as she did while identifying the Australian preference for pace on the ball? That’s a skillset and ability to read the game that deserves praise.
Dempsey can bring a crucial balance to this Irish attack. Ava Canning and Orla Prendergast are predominantly in-swing bowlers, albeit Prendergast has more pace and is working on developing an out-swinger. Arlene Kelly moves the ball in when she moves it in the air, but is at her best at the death. Laura Delany is not a prodigious swinger of the ball and instead has her success when bowling stump to stump with the ‘keeper up.
Of those who did not play, Jane Maguire is a big out-swing bowler, but at her pace, any movement off the seam she does get is not as threatening as Dempsey when she gets it right.
At the death, Dempsey has gotten it wrong in the past, but her cutter, combined with a yorker we didn’t see much of on Tuesday, make her a viable option. Ireland really only have one specialist in that facet of the game in Kelly.
Results should dictate Dempsey stays in the side - 4fer vs Australia at an economy of 5.5 is never to be sniffed at. She won’t always come off, but players who display these skills should be backed through failure.
Dempsey was taken to this year’s World Cup but only got a run out in the last game vs India despite calls to fortify a struggling lower order - she has batting pedigree with an unbeaten 45 vs Shabnim Ismail and South Africa last year. Similarly, on the recent tour of the Caribbean, she only played in the last T20. There, Sophie MacMahon and Louise Little were ahead of her in the all-rounder pecking order.
“I’ve been doing exams, not training as much,” said Dempsey in a nod to her recent Leaving Cert. “It’s [not playing] completely fair, there are great players in the squad.”
Ireland don’t have many players with Dempsey’s array of skills with the ball, let alone the ability to buy cheap wickets against this quality of opposition. Tuesday should go a long way to earning the trust to display that ability on a regular basis.