Why Ireland should pick Matthew Humphreys for Zimbabwe Test

Form alone should see Humphreys earn a recall, but discounting a high volume of wickets at representative level sends a dangerous message to fringe Irish players

Emerging Ireland’s Matthew Humphreys celebrates taking five wickets against the West Indies Academy. 📸: Cricket Ireland

All aboard the hype train.

Artic Monkeys frontman Alex Turner once told us not to believe the hype around his band when they were up and coming. In the case of Matthew Humphreys, it’s time to ignore Turner.

Inevitably, when a young prospect performs well with an Irish representative side, public opinion says it’s time to throw him in with the big boys. Journalists (if Ireland had more than three) write strong opinion pieces. Facebook forums light up with excited chatter. Twitter… well, the less said about that platform the better.

Humphreys, the 21-year-old Trinity College and Northern Knights spinner has just taken 10 wickets in a First Class match for Emerging Ireland against the West Indies Academy. What’s more, he out-bowled Ireland’s main red ball spinner, Andy McBrine, across both innings.

Last winter, when Emerging Ireland were playing in the Caribbean on the reciprocal tour for this series, seamer Tom Mayes also took a heap of red ball wickets. I was one of the many who then said it was harsh not to include him in the squad for the Afghanistan Test. Senior Irish players berated me for not watching properly. Look at the standard of batters and the dismissals. He wasn’t nicking them all off with beauties. Plenty came caught in the deep or skied in the ring.

Where does that leave Humphreys? Undroppable for the Zimbabwe Test or a good young player who needs more performances against better opposition to force his way in?

Even with all the caveats and the danger of getting too excited, let’s argue for the former. Give the kid a go. Not solely because of this First Class 10fer, but of the wider message his selection would send.

Humphreys has been here before. In early 2023, he was a shock selection for the tour of Asia. Recognising their need to develop slow left-armers and leg-spinners, Ireland took him and Ben White on a lengthy tour to bowl in favourable conditions. It didn’t matter that they weren’t experienced. The white ball games meant nothing towards World Cup qualification. The Tests were nostalgic one-offs for players and fans desperate to see the game’s most ‘prestigious’ format.

The punt didn’t work. Humphreys was picked on vibes. In the previous U19 World Cup, he was taking wickets when the going got tough and roaring at opposition and batters and teammates alike. Here was a good, gritty Irish cricketer. He had the mental capacity - if not the experience - to survive when thrown to the wolves of subcontinental batters in their home conditions. Or so the thinking went.

The experiment didn’t work. He had one good T20 against Bangladesh (2-10 off two overs) but everything else went as would be expected for a then 20-year-old without a single First Class game under his belt. He went wicketless in two ODIs at an economy of nearly nine.

Matthew Humphreys (middle row, third from the right) first made a senior Ireland squad at the age of 20. 📸: BCB

In the one Test in which he featured, against Sri Lanka in Galle, he again failed to pick up a dismissal. Humphreys bowled 10 overs at a cost of 67 runs. He clearly lost the trust of his skipper, given McBrine, Ireland’s other main spinner, sent down 57 overs.

It was the type of tour that could scar a youngster.

Here we are 18 or so months later and Humphreys has managed to brush off a nightmare trip for which, in hindsight, he probably shouldn’t have been picked. He was an important part of a title winning Knights side last summer. On the Wolves tour to Nepal in the spring, he took two 5fers in 50-over games.

In these recent Emerging Ireland matches, he only took one wicket in the white ball games, but his knock of 39 off 14 in the second match - as captain - dragged his side to an unlikely one-wicket victory. There’s that hard yakka which saw him picked for the senior squad nearly 18 months previously.

Red ball, though, is where he has done his damage. Initially, he was the one who suffered. A dislocated finger to his non-bowling hand while taking slip catches prior to the first 4-day game meant he didn’t bat on day one. With x-rays showing no fracture, he came back and bowled, snaring five wickets across the two innings.

The second game saw five scalps in both innings. His first 5fer was largely cleaning up the tail. The second was more ‘impressive’ as Humphreys accounted for three of the top five West Indies Academy batters. Plenty of LBWs and bowled dismissals were interspersed with catches. By all accounts, he did this on a surface which was slow without offering major turn.

Humphreys (with a bandaged non-bowling hand) appeals for a dismissal against the West Indies academy. 📸: Cricket Ireland

What, then, of the standard of opposition? This was a youthful Caribbean outfit. The video of Andrew Balbirnie at the toss alongside opposite number Teddy Bishop (aged 21), was comical. Almost literally, it was men against boys.

The Windies wanted to give their players exposure to European conditions to prepare the handful of batters who might one day play a few Tests in England. This was a young side on a difficult tour in alien conditions. By the time of the final game, they were already mentally on the plane home.

The Emerald Challenge, essentially an intersquad game for Ireland, which starts on July 8th, will be a tougher test for someone like Humphreys. Then, he will be asked to get actual internationals out.

Still, against the Caribbean kids, Humphreys looked better than McBrine, who took some punishment in the second innings. Humphreys has also been one of Ireland’s best performers during back-to-back Wolves/Emerging series. Normally, the argument against picking players following a strong junior run dictates that they need to be dominant time and again. Humphreys is starting to do that anyway, but the point only works if the senior incumbent is performing well enough to hold the young gun at bay.

Can we say that about McBrine? An ODI and Test specialist now, he hasn’t looked a threatening, wicket-taking option since his 6fer in a Test against Bangladesh last year. Even then, that spell came at an economy of four having bowled 28 overs. Quantity of balls bowled was a big factor.

Since then, in ODIs, McBrine has taken just 9 wickets in 14 games. In the successful Afghanistan Test, he held up an end without taking a wicket. At one point, the near complete lack of threat from McBrine and Theo van Woerkom (who took one scalp in the game), threatened to cost Ireland their chance of a famous first win.

📸: Cricket Ireland

McBrine isn’t struggling in the sense he has not been regularly hit out of the attack. But he isn’t thriving either. Humphreys has been dominant at the closest level to international cricket currently offered to him. Short of being dispatched to all parts in Malahide next week and McBrine pulling out a 10fer of his own, he should play against Zimbabwe. Maybe there is a spot for both of them, depending on how much it is expected to spin and the balance of the side.

There are already a number of players in the interpro system who think that Heinrich Malan and chief selector Andrew White have their group of 12/13 best cricketers and won’t deviate from that, no matter how good performances at domestic level are. Not picking someone like Humphreys, who has taken a bagful of wickets against semi-decent opposition across two series, wouldn’t help that image. Especially when his rival for a spot isn’t exactly shooting the lights out.

Put it this way. If this was Bazball England looking at one older off-spinner offering little by the way of wicket taking threat compared to a young left-armer who is building a promising record, it’s a no-brainer which one they would pick. The decision of the Irish selectors will tell us much of their attitude towards risk.

The Test, while a first in Ireland since 2018, doesn’t have anything riding on it competitively. Injecting fresh blood into the senior squad and reminding players, both inside and outside of the group, that performances at all levels matter, would be a good thing for Irish cricket. Even if the game was competitively important, there is a strong enough performance argument to be made for Humphreys.

When he was first selected, Humphreys had no cricket above U19 level to develop. Nothing other than a hunch suggested he was ready. This time around, Ireland have got the timeline right. Interpros; Wolves; Emerging Ireland; he has performed at each level. Will it culminate in Test recall?

Pick the kid. Pick him and McBrine if you want. Humphreys’ selection would be a good thing for Irish cricket. Even if we should never believe the hype.

Emerging Ireland notes

• For all the talk of picking a consistently in-form player over one who has been passable at international level, another example from this Emerging Ireland series (where they won all 5 games against their Caribbean counterparts), shows the flip side of the coin. Morgan Topping had a good run, with scores of 66*, 53, 46 and 45*. He’s also recently thrown in a club half-century for good measure. But above Topping in his middle order position, Harry Tector has strung consistent performances together for Ireland over the last two years. Someone like Humphreys needs to bowl well consistently to impress compared to McBrine. Being better than Ireland’s best middle order batter needs daddy hundreds - and plenty of them. Topping played well, but not well enough to start a conversation around senior selection.

• It looks like some opening batting depth is finally starting to come through. Chris de Freitas, the South African-born Balbriggan man, impressed with scores of 84 and 88 against the West Indies. He doesn’t qualify for Ireland until January, so chatter can hold off for now. That said, despite the weight of runs behind them in their careers, Andrew Balbirnie and Paul Stirling need someone nipping at their heels. De Freitas isn’t doing that yet, but given Murray Commins is gone and no one else is scoring opening runs (Tim Tector is at interpro level, but wasn’t picked for this series for whatever reason), it’s a positive that someone may be starting to come close to creating top order depth.

• What to make of James McCollum? Ireland’s former Test opener was probably on the verge of once again failing to make a Test XI - he was left out against Afghanistan in the spring - after scores of 7 and 6 in the first red ball game against the Windies. Familiar questions around the wisdom of contracting a red ball specialist who isn’t scoring red ball runs resurfaced. Then he scored 40 in the second game when he elevated his performance alongside the return of Ireland’s senior batters. Was it a career-saving knock? I don’t think even the selectors have an answer yet. PJ Moor looks set to return from a torn hamstring in the intersquad game on Monday week. How he and McCollum fare in that will be fascinating. Depending on the balance of the side which Ireland choose, it could be a straight shootout between those two for a place against Zimbabwe. Or, they bring them both back in and drop a bowler. Regardless, the uncertainty adds some potential spice to that intersquad clash.