World Cup hangover: England bowled out for 85 by impressive Ireland on day one at Lord’s
After the ecstatic high, the crushing low.
The dramatic nature of England’s first World Cup win lent itself to prolonged celebration, but after 10 days of jubilation the hangover hit hard at Lord’s, with Ireland arriving to break up the party and bring them back to earth with a bump.
England’s Test batting has long been a concern yet they still managed to plumb new depths, being dismissed for just 85 in 23.4 overs – their shortest ever Test innings at home – inside the first session of the summer after winning the toss against a side playing only their third match in the format.
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Before the game captain Joe Root had said England must “ride the wave” of confidence stemming from their remarkable win over New Zealand. Instead they’ve been dragged underwater and drowned by it.
“The intensity this week will set the tone for the rest of the summer,” Root said. With a deficit of 122 to make up and the Ashes just a week away, he will now hope that isn’t the case.
Ashes auditions
England have mastered the art of the batting collapse, but even for them this was galling. Thoughts of Ashes auditions quickly evaporated as batsman after batsman returned to the pavilion disappointed.
Jason Roy, the latest hope at the top of the order, failed to prove his doubters wrong, edging behind having already been plumb lbw off a Mark Adair no-ball.
Joe Denly may have top-scored with 23 but his failure, alongside Rory Burns’, leaves England no closer to solving their perennial problem.
This match was billed as an opportunity to cement some batting positions. However it seems to have left England sinking into the quicksand.
Dominoes
In the World Cup final fans were forced to hide behind their sofas to escape the tension. Today it was in horror. At their nadir the hosts lost six wickets for seven runs inside 27 balls as their shortened batting order was gutted and the five World Cup heroes contributed just seven runs between them.
For a barely fathomable period of play everything England touched turned to wickets as Ireland kicked down the door and rampaged through their ramshackle middle order.
Between 1938 and 2016 England did not lose all 10 wickets inside a single session of Test cricket. Startlingly, in the last three years they’ve done so four times in 34 matches. The Root era has redefined their batting woes.
Magic Murtagh
To describe England’s misery without complimenting its architect would be unfair because Tim Murtagh was exceptional.
The Middlesex man has waited years for a first Test on his home ground and he didn’t disappoint, putting on a clinic of how to bowl at Lord’s, using controlled swing and seam movement to dismiss both openers, rip out the middle order and get his name on the Lord’s honours board at the first time of asking.
His figures of 5-13 from nine overs showed a master craftsman still at the height of his powers despite nearing his 38th birthday, and showed exactly why Ireland are deserving of their Test status.
Wayward bowling
Having put up little fight and been skittled in embarrassing circumstances England then didn’t take heed of what they’d witnessed. Ireland, through the metronomic Murtagh and impressive Adair, earned their success through relentless consistency – they kept the ball full and forced the batsmen to play.
By contrast England were far from their best, with openers Stuart Broad and Chris Woakes too wide. The position they find themselves in is obviously the fault of the batsmen but, debutant Olly Stones aside, England were lacklustre with the ball too.
Indeed many of their wickets owed to good fortune or poor shots, with Sam Curran making the first breakthrough with a long-hop and three wickets resulting from drag-ons.
Stone’s pace offered some excitement in the absence of the injured Mark Wood and Jofra Archer, and his delivery to bowl Andy Balburine was a rare high point in a chastening day which also included mistakes in the slip cordon.
But after Ireland reached 207 to claim a first-innings lead of 122 and force the home team into the ignominy of batting again on day one, Stone’s performance wasn’t enough to lighten one of the worst days in England’s Test history.
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