Matthew Humphreys interview
From contemplating walking away from cricket to a return to the Test side, how a remodelled action saved the young Ireland spinner's career
🏏🏏 An interview with young Ireland spinner Matthew Humphreys is below. But first, a note to point you all in the direction of a new audio offering alongside the written work. Myself and Ally McAlmont, of Irish cricket commentary fame, have teamed up to bring you the Irish Cricket Podcast.
Episode one features a lengthy chat on the future of Irish Test cricket. Now that the novelty of the format has begun to wear off, is the strategy of a handful of Tests a year, waiting for Abbotstown to come along and save the barren schedule, sufficient to keep Irish Test cricket relevant?
PLUS: An exclusive interview with Ireland Test captain Andrew Balbirnie. He speaks for the first time about being dropped from the T20 side, all while offering his thoughts on the future of Test cricket. You can listen to the whole thing here.
Back to the reading offering and back to spin bowling. As a Cricket Ireland employee once said to me, ‘Up the Humph.’ 🏏🏏
Matthew Humphreys tried all three options before finding what suited just right.
A left-arm seamer as a child, his mop of hair paired with an England jersey brought about a phase of idolising Ryan Sidebottom. One childhood birthday party saw an impromptu net session in the Humphreys driveway. Guests took turns to face the young left-arm quick coming off the long run. The unsuspecting, non-cricket playing children didn’t have a hope. Nor did they have a choice. It was his birthday after all.
If a future fast bowling career seemed too hot, Humphreys then turned to leg-spin. That art, though, was too cold. “To be honest, my leg spin was terrible throughout,” he recalls, laughing. “I was just trying to not drag it halfway down the wicket half the time.”
Aged 16, a move from Instonians to Lisburn Cricket Club south of Belfast coincided with a shift to left-arm orthodox. “I have a theory that kids can’t bowl finger spin because their fingers are too small,” explains Humphreys. “I think it’s more natural for kids to bowl wrist spin and then when you get to 16, 17, your hands get too big, so it gets hard to bowl wrist spin, so you swap to finger spin.”
The change proved just right.
He started working with James Cameron-Dow, the former Ireland slow left armer who at the time was working with the Northern Cricket Union. He is now Ireland women’s spin coach. Humphreys combined a burgeoning cricket career with schools rugby at Methodist College. In his penultimate year at school, he played directly opposite Harry Sheridan, now an Ulster second row. Methody won that day, but Humphreys always found himself gravitating back towards cricket.
He burst onto the national scene at the 2022 U19 World Cup. He and Reuben Wilson were the standout bowlers on an Irish side which gained as much notoriety for their exuberant celebrations as their actual cricket. “I always get a bit of grief for how hard we went at that 19s World Cup,” says Humphreys, laughing once again.
“Boys were getting texts back telling us off for how we were getting on. It’s a weird scenario, a lot of those low scoring qualifying games are just a question of who’s more up for it half the time. That’s how we decided to play it a lot of the time. I do enjoy getting into the battle, it motivates you more to take it on.”
Call it grit, determination or just a group of over-stimulated teenagers. Whatever it was, it saw Humphreys fast-tracked into a senior call-up. With no standout spinner behind Andy McBrine, selectors figured the young lad up for the fight had as good a chance as any.
In 2023, a Test debut against Sri Lanka, coming before Humphreys had even played a First Class game, went as expected. He sent down just 10 of the 151 overs Ireland bowled. McBrine bowled 57 as the Ireland captain sought to protect his young, outmatched spinner.
Fast forward two years and Humphreys found himself deprived of overs in a Test match once again. Only this time, after working his way back for last July’s win over Zimbabwe, it was an altogether different story. The performance of Ireland’s seamers, combined with the lack of expected turn in Stormont, saw Humphreys only bowl five of the 142 overs offered up by Irish bowlers.
“Sri Lanka was a trial by fire, I wouldn’t say I was in any way ready for it,” acknowledges Humphreys. “Just how it happened, not having a spinner and they wanted to see if they could find someone on the fly.
“Stormont was a different pitch to what we anticipated and it didn’t go as long as we might have thought. If we got into a last session on day four or five, spin might have come more into it. You can’t really be disappointed whenever you win a Test match like that. It’s part of the game. Some days you have more of a role to play, some days you don’t.”
What changed from spring 2023 to summer 2024, apart from time? Former spin coach and Australia international Nathan Hauritz left Ireland immediately after Humphreys’ Test debut. No replacement was hired until Chris Brown started in January the following year. During the intervening period, Humphreys’ lack of success with the junior Ireland side left him considering his cricketing future.
“Ah, I’m kind of jesting, but I was at a point where you’re not contracted, you have a bad academy tour, you’re on the brink of falling out of that set-up. If you fall out of that, where do you go? You’re playing interpro cricket which isn’t sustainable going forward. Luckily I was still in college but I guess if you’re in a different position… you’d be thinking of committing less time.
“I had a good chat with Johnty [Simon Johnston, head coach of the Northern Knights] whenever I came back from Antigua. He’s been looking after me for the last six years moving through the pathway, in fact longer. He sat me down and said ‘I can see you’re pissed off with how things are going and how you’re performing. Take a step back, chill out. It’s leading up to Christmas, have a few weeks off and come back after Christmas fresh.’ It's what I needed at that time and it coincided with Browny starting, but that was a fresh start.”
In many ways, the narrative is too simple. Young spinner loses his way after being thrown to the international wolves. A lack of specialist coaching sees him spiral further. A new spin coach comes in the nick of time to save his career. It wasn’t that simple. Humphreys needed a lot of remedial work to get back to the cusp of playing another Test against Zimbabwe this week.
“You probably hadn’t realised but there’s a complete change in run-up, action,” he explains. “If I look back at how I was bowling in Sri Lanka it gives me the heeby jeebies sometimes.
“Technically, I had a lot of problems with alignment, crossing myself over. My follow through, I would swing my back leg around and everything would drift down the leg side. Then my release point was low and it would be slingy. The biggest thing has been getting back on the track, getting up and over, tall action, strong release point on the crease. I don’t even have a run-up anymore, I just run in a few paces. Towards the end of Antigua I was hurtling in trying to get something on the ball.
“The main problem I had was everything sliding down the leg side. That’s not a great position to be in as a left arm spinner. The technical work I’ve done means I feel like I have control over my seam position whenever I bowl.
“I feel like, depending on the conditions, I can bowl overspin, side spin consistently in an area which will challenge the batters. Conditions dependent, I can challenge them in different ways. If you’re on a flatter pitch, you want to bowl more overspin and challenge them in the air. On a spinning pitch you want to bowl more side spin and challenge them off the pitch. The most important part is having the confidence in your action, you’re not thinking about that when you’re bowling. You’re thinking about getting the guy at the other end out, rather than how your body is moving.”
Humphreys doesn’t take much prodding to get into the weeds of spin bowling. Perhaps it is no surprise he combines his part-time Ireland contract with a Maths degree at Trinity College. Cricketing numbers also come into the sphere of interest. Humphreys keeps a scorecard from the 1981 Ashes in his bedroom, a gift from his grandparents.
The redeveloped action has paid off. Humphreys took plenty of First Class wickets against the West Indies Academy last summer, form which ultimately saw him jump back into the Test side. Perhaps the selectors had correctly identified something other than a brash youngster up for the fight. Or that very bite is what brought him back from the brink
For reasons both positive and negative, Humphreys has only bowled 15 overs in his two career Test matches. He did at least earn his first wicket back in July, but the most noteworthy Test contribution to date is a five-boundary batting cameo of 27* in that same victory over Zimbabwe.
Given the bowling resurgence, much is expected of Humphreys. In both red and white ball formats. The next step, the true vindication of this process, is to add to the overs and wickets ledger. By the end of this week in Bulawayo, perhaps the numbers come closer to looking just right.