The four-day Test at Stormont looks like it will be one day too many for Ireland who will need 256 runs on day three to avoid an innings defeat. They have eight wickets left although  one of them is night watchman Tom Mayes who survived to the close, along with Stephen Doheny, who has already faced 45 more balls than he managed in the first innings.

Unfortunately for Andrew Balbirnie and Cade Carmichael they join the Test players who have been dismissed twice in a day after New Zealand declared half an hour before lunch on 490 for eight. Three overs after the break, Ireland had crashed to 38 for six but, no panic, that brought Mark Adair in to join Andrew McBrine and we all know an innings is never finished until at least one of them has been dismissed.

Sure enough, the pair who added 163 at Lords in 2023 and 127 in Bulawayo last year defied the New Zealand attack to rescue Ireland from embarrassment. This time their seventh wicket partnership was worth 116, enough to ensure they now have the top three Ireland partnerships in Test cricket. There have been only seven century stands for Ireland in their 13 Tests but five of them have been for the seventh wicket and four have involved the indefatigable McBrine.

The Donemana man may be the only specialist spinner in the team but it is his batting that won him the place over Matthew Humphreys in this side and, yet again, he has proven he is virtually undroppable.

For the fourth time in his Test career, he ran out of partners, having made 73 of his side’s 179. Adair was second top score with 40 but only two other players reached double figures as the top order was blown away by Nathan Smith, who at one stage had figures of five for nine.

Doheny was his first victim, leg before, and with the last ball of his first over Carmichael had nicked off to second slip. Balbirnie received a beauty which nipped back and took the top of middle but Curtis Campher, out for a golden duck for the second match at Stormont, and Harry Tector both looked unlucky to be given lbw. There is no DRS in this match. 
Lorcan Tucker played down the wrong line to give Smith his first five-for in Test cricket and when he returned for his second spell his short ball did for Adair, who could only scoop it up to wicket-keeper Tom Blundell.  The last two wickets could add only 12 runs as Ben Sears joined in the wicket-taking fun.

Ireland were handicapped in the morning with Adair unable to take the field because of a stomach upset and Blundell and debutant Dean Foxcroft took their sixth wicket stand to 158 – the second Test in a row when the record fifth and sixth wicket partnerships against Ireland have been broken.

Blundell added another 44 to his overnight score and personal best before he was caught  in the deep by substitute Humphreys to  give Reuben Wilson a deserved first Test wicket.

Another substitute, who, technically has yet to play for Ireland, Jake Egan had the direct hit which ran out Smith and New Zealand captain Tom Latham called them in when Foxcroft fell two runs short of his century,  caught at short fine leg by Wilson off that man McBrine.