Harry Tector: 'The hurt you experience after losing a game like that is horrendous'

Despite a productive year with the bat in One-Day Internationals, the 20-over disappointment still stings Tector

Harry Tector says that Ireland must do the best they can.

A new year brings a new start and few teams in Irish sport will be as keen to turn the page on 2021 as the national cricket team.

Defeat to Namibia in October ended their World T20 hopes in the first round meaning they have to negotiate a qualifying tournament next month to compete in the next edition hosted by Australia later in the year.

If they thought that would be the low point they were wrong as it got worse for the boys in green — suffering defeat to world number 30 USA in Florida just before Christmas.

The tied series against the States was the first under the guidance of former Northamptonshire coach David Ripley, who is in temporary charge before newly-appointed South African Heinrich Malan takes the reins in March, following Graham Ford’s departure as head coach.

With all that has gone on over the last few months, the historic win over South Africa back in July seems like a distant memory.

Harry Tector blasted 79 off just 68 balls that day in Malahide, his highest score for Ireland to date. However, despite a productive year with the bat in One-Day Internationals, the 20-over disappointment still stings.

“I still don’t think I’m really over it,” he confesses from Jamaica ahead of the three-match ODI series against the West Indies.

“You’ve got to just get on with it, you have to dust yourself off, get back on the horse and try and do better next time. Learn from your mistakes and try to get better - that’s all you can do.”

Since gaining Test status in 2017, Irish cricketers have been considered overseas players in England’s County Championship (unless they declare themselves unavailable for international selection) shutting down an avenue where so many of the country’s best players learned their craft.

With only a few survivors from the breakthrough success of the 2007 and 2011 World Cups, Ireland have been in a period of transition over the last few years with the newer faces in the side like Tector, Josh Little, Curtis Campher and Lorcan Tucker all learning on the job, with the avenue of playing domestic cricket in England now blocked off.

So while results like the Namibia and USA games are deeply frustrating, inconsistency is to be expected, YMCA clubman Tector acknowledges.

“That’s the nature of sport, some days you’re not going to play well, some days you will lose. It’s about trying to learn from that, and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

The knowledge that there will be bad days in the green jersey, doesn’t make them any less gut-wrenching when they come, however, especially when they happen on the biggest stage.

“That feeling (after the Namibia loss), I don’t think I ever want to feel that way after a game of cricket. The hurt you experience after losing a game like that and being knocked out of a World Cup and having to sit on your couch and watch them or anyone else playing the games you should have been playing in is horrendous.

Namibia's captain Gerhard Erasmus celebrates after winning. Picture: INPHO/Pankaj Nangia

“I don’t think I ever want to experience something like that again but unfortunately with sport, I know the nature of it (means) that I probably will but it’s just trying to use that as motivation to improve and get better and win that game next time.”

What better way to try and get over the disappointment of 2021 by getting back into the swing of things with this Caribbean tour.

While Tector will be raring to go after spending 16 days in isolation following a positive Covid test and then mandatory quarantine on arrival in Jamaica, Ireland have to prepare without their talisman Paul Stirling, who also contracted the virus but is hoping to be available for the second ODI.

The Belfast man was the main bright spark of last year, his efforts earning him a spot on a four-man shortlist for world ODI player of the year.

“Any team that loses their best player is going to struggle,” admits Tector. “You can’t replace someone like Paul, he’s such a brilliant player and he has been for such a long time.

“We have to stand up now and go out and do the best we can.”

While these have been challenging times for Ireland without both their world-class opening batsman and a full-time head coach, their surroundings for the series should provide inspiration for the class of 2022.

Sabina Park, which hosts all three ODIs and the T20 international on January 16, was the venue when a team of amateur players put Ireland on the global cricketing map when they stunned Pakistan at the 2007 World Cup.

Irish fans celebrate victory over Pakistan at Sabina Park in Kingston, Jamaica. Picture: Gareth Fuller/PA

William Porterfield is the sole survivor from that game in the current squad and the former captain along with Tector are now two of 17 full-time professionally contracted players with Cricket Ireland, something scarcely believable a generation ago.

“I used to always say whenever someone asks what I want to be ‘I want to be a professional cricketer’ even though I don’t think it was a thing (at the time),” says Tector who was seven years old when Ireland’s part-timers stunned the world.

“Thankfully the Irish team when I was growing up played so well and had so many great performances that when I was 18 I was offered a full-time contract.

“That was a massive surprise but also it was an amazing offer to go out and get paid to do something I’d do for free which is play cricket, it’s something I love to do and all I really want to do.”