One Hundred and Three Runs, and Glasgow's Season Runs Out of Road

There is a moment in a lopsided Twenty20 match when the chasing side stops chasing and starts surviving, and for Glasgow Cosmic on Sunday evening it arrived in the eighth over. Forty-seven for five, 141 still required, and the only recognisable batter left at the crease was Moises Henriques with the tail for company.

Belfast won by 103 runs, which is the sort of margin that flattens all the detail out of a match report. The detail worth keeping is this: Belfast's 187 was built by a No. 5 who faced 25 balls, and Glasgow's 84 was ended by a spinner who took four wickets for 19.

Paul Stirling fell for 3 in the second over at his home-from-home ground, and Belfast were rebuilt by two very different innings. Lorcan Tucker's 50 came from 45 balls with a single six — the innings of a wicketkeeper who has done this often enough to know that somebody has to bat through. Harry Manenti's 39 from 26 kept the rate honest in a second-wicket stand of 73 from 47.

Then Mark Chapman arrived at 104 for 3 in the twelfth over and made 54 from 25 balls with four sixes. His fourth-wicket stand with Tucker was worth 45 from 24, and his partnership with David Miller added 28 more from 18. Belfast scored 83 from their last five overs.

The most instructive column on Glasgow's bowling card belongs to Liam Livingstone: four overs, 27 runs, three wickets, on a night when his four colleagues conceded 153 between them. When your best bowler is your part-time spinner and your seamers go at eleven, the total gets away.

Glasgow lost Jason Roy and Finn Allen inside three overs and were 19 for 2 before the field spread. Matthew Humphreys finished with 4 for 19 from his four. Mark Adair, Chris Jordan, G Hoey and Glenn Maxwell took one apiece, which is what happens when a chasing side has already abandoned the chase: wickets stop being earned and start being collected.

Moises Henriques made 31 from 25 with two sixes and was bowled in the tenth over with the score on 61. From 45 for 3 Glasgow lost four wickets for 16 runs. The innings closed on 84 for 9 in the 14.5th over.

Belfast's most impressive feature was the absence of a weak link in the attack. Six bowlers were used and the most expensive of them conceded 19. That is a captain being able to bowl whoever he likes at whoever is at the crease, and it is a luxury Glenn Maxwell has enjoyed more often than not this season.

The evening game at Malahide played truer than the afternoon fixture that preceded it — Belfast's 187 from twenty overs was the highest first-innings total of the day at the ground — but there was enough grip for slow bowling to matter, which both sides discovered. Livingstone took three, Humphreys took four, and the seamers on both sides went at more than eight an over. The pitch rewarded whoever bowled slower, and Belfast simply had more of them.

We leaned firmly towards Belfast, on the grounds of batting depth extending from Stirling through Maxwell, Chapman and Miller, plus a bowling attack with options for every phase. Both halves of that held up: Chapman was the top scorer, and the attack produced six bowlers none of whom went for more than 19.

Our two players to watch were Paul Stirling and Liam Livingstone. Stirling made 3. Livingstone took 3 for 27 and then made 1 — which was exactly the point we made in the preview, that Glasgow keep asking one man to do something no one man should have to do. We would rather have been wrong about that.

Belfast move to 11 points from nine matches and sit second, level on points with Rotterdam and behind Edinburgh's 13. Glasgow are on 4 points from nine, with seven defeats, and are now realistically playing for pride and net run rate rather than a play-off place.

For Belfast, the encouraging part is the balance rather than the margin. They won this without a contribution from Stirling, without needing Maxwell to bat long, and with the match-winning spell coming from a spinner rather than an overseas name. Sides built like that are difficult to plan against in knockout cricket.