Resuming at 33 for five yesterday, still needing another 125 for victory, Tucker was the only wicket to fall as Ireland became just the third country to win back-to-back Test matches in their first nine games.
Fittingly, it was Adair, the player who lives closest to the Belfast venue, who hit the winning boundary before the delayed lunch.
It was Adair and McBrine who had famously saved the follow-on in the Lord’s Test match last year, and they were just as impressive yesterday, scoring the last 41 runs to get Ireland over the line.
Being greedy, Ireland have a great chance of making it three, even four Test wins in a row, as their next two are also against Zimbabwe in February.
McBrine has taken to Test cricket like a duck to water, revelling in bowling long spells and with time to build an innings showing his talent with the bat.
Mark Adair celebrates the winning run
This was his fourth half-century in his last five second innings, and although he scored 72 against Bangladesh and 86 not out against England, his undefeated 55 here that included an all-run five was easily the most important of them all. As he also took seven wickets and scored 83 runs, the Man of the Match decision was a formality.
“Lorcan and I tried to be as positive as we could if the ball was there to be hit, we stuck to our guns, and obviously, it was nice to put on that (sixth wicket record) partnership. Then Mark came in, positively, and got us over the line,” said McBrine.
“I have been working hard on my bowling behind the scenes with Brownie (spin coach Chris Brown), and it was nice to contribute with wickets. It shows that when you put in the effort, it pays off at the end of the day.”
Adair joined in the praise for his ‘best mate’ and admitted most of the hard work had been done before he arrived in the middle.
“Scra (McBrine) was unbelievable all week. Delighted for him to get Man of the Match,” he said.
“He and Lorcan ground through a tough period last night and came back today and changed the momentum, getting us closer and closer.
“The chat in the team meeting this morning was that we needed 125, do we have the players capable of doing that, and the answer was ‘absolutely yes’.”
Adair came into the match without cricket for five weeks and he confessed that he was never at his best, but despite getting a ball in the mouth during the warm-up on Day Two and dislocating a finger attempting to take a catch on Saturday, he still bowled 33 overs and took four wickets before his heroic match-winning 38-ball innings.
“Certainly, in the first innings, I was running in with lead in my boots,” added Ireland’s strike bowler. “I wasn’t really at the races, but the other bowlers kept taking wickets, kept creating chances.
“Barry’s (McCarthy) spell on Day One was phenomenal, Youngy (Craig Young) has that knack of taking important wickets, and I’m delighted for Humph (Matthew Humphreys) taking his first Test wicket.
“You don’t realise how important they are across five days; every run scored, every run saved paid dividends. Humph and Scra put on 40 for the last wicket in the first innings. If we had needed another 40 runs today, it would have been tricky, so they put us in a really good position.”
Undoubtedly, if play had continued on Saturday night, Zimbabwe were favourites to finish the job, but with the sun shining yesterday and batting consistently easier in the first session each day, luck favoured the Irish.
With their next game still six months away, the deserved celebrations can go on for some time.
