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Contribution by Ger Siggins (Irish Daily Mail/Sunday Independent)

The dust has finally settled on Ireland’s test match win over Zimbabwe and it was a historic occasion in more ways than one.

Several stats were highlighted during the game – none more than the inglorious 42 byes conceded on his debut by the Zimbabwean keeper Clive Matande. According to Wisden statistician Steven Lynch, Matande first broke the record for most byes conceded on debut – previously 28 by Hanif Mohammad (Pakistan v India at Delhi, 1952-53).

He then took down the record for any wicket-keeper, beating the 37 recorded by an England keeper in 1930-31. Leslie Ames was the regular keeper but was injured while scoring a century in the third innings of the game, forcing fellow-Kent player Frank Woolley to keep wicket for the first time in his career. Cricinfo carries Ames name on the top of the list, with Woolley mentioned in a footnote, which seems a bit harsh on poor Les!

In all Matande let through 49 byes in the match, which appears to be a record too, although we could not confirm this.

Ireland’s 59 extras in a total of 250 comes to 23.6%, the highest proportion in any Test innings over 200.

Ireland have only played nine Test matches so it was inevitable that some Irish records were broken or set.
PJ Moor’s 79 on the second morning was the highest score by any Irish opening batsman, and the third fastest of the 22 fifties – Lorcan Tucker’s second innings effort was the fifth fastest.

As Matande knows, not all records are a good thing, and Curtis Campher became the first Irish player to be out first ball twice in his career – four others have done it once, including Tucker in the first innings.
Campher and Moor both join Andrew Balbirnie on top of the list with three Test ducks apiece.

Andy McBrine’s match figures of 7-57 are the second best by an Irishman, behind only Mark Adair’s 8-98 against Afghanistan in Abu Dhabi.

Although only two Tests have been played in 2024, Adair (12) tops the list for most wickets in a calendar year, beating McBrine’s 11 last year when there were four.

Lorcan Tucker held three catches in each innings, equalling the performance behind the stumps of Gary Wilson at Lord’s in 2019.

As for fielding, there was a remarkable stat floating around courtesy of the Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians. They noted that all eleven of Ireland’s players took at least one catch in the Test, a feat only recorded once before, by New Zealand v Sri Lanka in Wellington, last year. The Kiwis’ also had a sub catch so probably shade that record.

The match at Stormont was over at lunchtime on day four, the third of Ireland’s nine Tests to end on that day. Four of them ended on day 3 and only two went to the fifth day. In the inaugural test v Pakistan (although the first day was lost to rain), while the longest Test to date was the second v Sri Lanka in Galle which ended in the 56th over of day 5, after 374 overs. Only the two defeats at Lord’s have lasted fewer than the 237.1 overs bowled in Stormont.

Two partnership records were broken by Ireland – the first wicket stand between Moor and Balbirnie yielded 71 runs, while Tucker and McBrine’s epic sixth wicket effort yielded 96.

The amazing all-run five by Andy McBrine on the final morning was the first without overthrows in a Test since former Ireland bowling coach Craig McDermott did it for Australia v Sri Lanka in 1996.

By just turning up Zimbabwe became the first team to play a Test away against every full member.

Indian stats man Kausthub Gudipati noted that the result also added to the current streak of most consecutive Tests without a draw, which now stands at 28 in men’s Tests. The current run in women’s Tests is five, also a record.

He also pointed out that, since 2020, only two venues have had their inaugural men’s Test. Tolerance Oval, Abu Dhabi in February, and Stormont, which happen to be the only two Tests Ireland played this year.

Only Australia (in 3 matches), Afghanistan (3) and England (4) have achieved their second test win quicker than Ireland – by way of comparison Bangladesh took 60 matches and New Zealand 55.

The number of Tests played before recording back-to-back wins is just as extraordinary: Afghanistan did it in 2nd/3rd, Australia 6th/7th, Ireland 8th/9th. All the others took longer than Ireland to do it, India doing it in their 76th/77th and New Zealand 149th/150th!

And if you exclude the original Test playing sides, England and Australia, Ireland (2) is the fastest of all to record its first win at home, ahead of West Indies (3) and Pakistan (5). It took Bangladesh 16 games and New Zealand 22 before they won at home.

The record for proportion of runs scored after the fall of the fifth wicket is 94.4% by India v NZ in 2010 at Ahmedabad, narrowly beating India’s 93.9% made against England at the Oval in 1952, the famous game when Alec Bedser and Fred Trueman reduced them to 6 for 5. But the next two on that list were BOTH made this weekend – Ireland’s 86.7% and England’s 85.6% at Edgbaston.

Another great stat is again courtesy of the ACSH: The 21 runs made by Ireland’s first five wickets is the fewest in a fourth innings chase where the team went on to win. The previous lowest was 30-5 by NZ vs WI, Christchurch 1987, and in that instance they only needed 33. The previous record when the team still needed 100+ to win after the fall of the fifth wicket was one of the most famous Tests of all – Gilbert Jessop’s match at the Oval in 1902, when England were 48-5 but the remaining five wickets added the 215 needed.

But my favourite stat of all was one I identified last year after yet another rearguard action showed how Ireland’s most productive batting cohort is the bottom half of the order. Since Ireland started playing Tests, the specialist batsmen have scored 1,878 runs before the fall of the fifth wicket, an average of 21 per wicket, or 105 for the top order.

The lower middle-order/tail enders, thanks to sterling efforts by the likes of Tim Murtagh, McBrine, Tucker, Adair, Campher, James Cameron-Dow, Matthew Humphreys and George Dockrell, have accumulated 2,085 runs, at an astonishing average for the bottom five of 26 runs per wicket, or 130 for the group as a whole.

This Irish Test side has plenty to offer yet for us badgers.

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