Ireland triumph as Dockrell and Adair weigh in with treble hauls
happy with your own performance,” he said of his 58th minute burst which brought Ulster their second touchdown and first points for 33 minutes.
“But, look, the team didn’t get what we wanted out of there. Obviously the team is the main priority, so that’s where we hope we will get some more cohesion this week and play better,” says Hume.
There is certainly ample room for improvement.
“I think it’s going to be a bit different this week,” says the former RBAI pupil who won three straight Schools’ Cups.
“We know what happened (against the Cheetahs) and we know how to fix it.
“That’s (been done in) training for us this week, to get back to normal and put in a big performance in Port Elizabeth this weekend.”
While Ulster were by some way second best with their setpiece work, there were also a host of missed tackles too ensuring that the team, as a whole, badly malfunctioned last weekend.
“It was a tough (post-match video) review to go through, but the boys know what we did wrong, so we’re all ready to go this week to iron out all those problems.
“Obviously it’ll be easier to breathe there (not being at altitude) so that’s good for us but the Kings are very similar to the Cheetahs, they’re very dangerous if you let them run.
“So we have our game-plan set in place.”
Ideally, it will work rather better than the last one. EXCELLENT bowling compensated for another horrible batting collapse to give Ireland a third win in four matches at the Oman Pentangular Tournament.
Mark Adair and George Dockrell each took three wickets and Gareth Delany two as Ireland fought back to defend an under-par 145-8 and claim victory by 13 runs.
Victory for Oman in yesterday’s second match, however — they bowled out Netherlands for 94 with leg spinner Khawar Ali taking a hat-trick with his first balls — means that Ireland cannot win the tournament which ends today, when the other four teams are in action again.
Ireland enjoyed another fast start, reaching 87-1 at halfway — exactly matching their total at the same stage against Hong Kong on Monday.
Then they totalled 208-5, yesterday they lost seven wickets for 29 and it was Stuart Thompson, with 18 in the last over, including two sixes, which was to win the match.
After two balls of the last over of the Oman innings, it looked as if Karen KC would repeat his heroics in the hosts’ victory over Netherlands on Monday but after hitting Mark Adair for a six and a four, his attempt at a third boundary landed in the safe hands of Harry Tector at long-on.
Tector had already taken the catch of the day, diving in from the mid-wicket boundary, but in a superb fielding display he was run close for that honour by Simi Singh and Gary Wilson, the skipper dismissing top scorer Aarif Sheikh after a run-a-ball 26.
Dockrell, who replaced Lorcan Tucker in the only change from Monday’s winning line-up, had a good day, conceding just one boundary in his last over and looks a safe bet for the second spinner’s role behind Delany who was demoted to No.7 in the batting order yesterday but was part of the collapse, albeit to the best catch of the innings.
Kevin O’Brien, in his 350th game for Ireland, was out in the second over but Paul Stirling, with his 19th T20I half-century and Andrew Balbirnie added 88 in 59 balls for the second wicket. Scores: Ireland 145-8 (P Stirling 59, A Balbirnie 38, S Thompson 21 not out) Nepal 132 (19.5 overs, M Adair 3-22, G Dockrell 3-23, G Delany 2-30). Ireland won by 13 runs.