England's collapse against Ireland was worryingly familiar

SAM MORSHEAD AT LORD'S: Welcome back to reality, folks. Pack away the retro kit, leave euphoria at the door, and remind yourself what this game is really all about

Scorecard

At 1.08pm, seven minutes before the scheduled lunch on the first day of the men’s Test summer, Olly Stone was bowled off his elbow by Mark Adair. England were all out. For 85.

It was quite a departure from the scenes at Lord’s just 10 days previously, on a pitch three strips adjacent. 

Swapping out jubilation for humiliation, the world champions in 50-over cricket had been shown up to be chumps against the red ball, undone by local resident Tim Murtagh and an Irish seam attack which plugged away with disciplined lines, and let their hosts’ angst-ridden batting do the rest.

Murtagh finished with 5-13, making the most of his vast experience of the surroundings - he went into the match with almost as many first-class appearances at Lord’s as the entire England team - and earning himself a place on the honours board within an hour and a half.

Debutant Mark Adair returned 3-32 and Boyd Rankin 2-5, and that was very much that.

Welcome back to reality, folks. Pack away the retro kit, leave euphoria at the door, and remind yourself what this game is really all about.

^{Jonny Bairstow is bowled without scoring at Lord's}

It might have been excusable, as a one-off, but this sort of implosion is becoming worryingly habitual within England’s Test team.

This was the fourth time in 34 Tests, let’s not forget, that they had lost 10 wickets in a single session. Between 1938 and 2016, that did not happen once. 

This was the second time in 18 months that they had lasted fewer than 25 overs batting first in a Test.

What’s more, their dismissals were eerily familiar.

For those sceptical of Jason Roy as a Test opener, his first appearance at the top of the order was like showing an episode of Air Crash Investigation to a nervous flyer. 

NOW READ: England's collapse in numbers

Roy’s 11-ball innings would have been curtailed sooner had Adair not overstepped en route to pinning him lock-stock lbw, while an attempted leave skirted off his inside edge and whispered sweet nothings in leg stump’s ear.

Murtagh eventually got him, caught at slip prodding forwards timidly - not the Roy we have come to know and love in coloured clothing; the anti-Roy, if you will.

There is a chance that Surrey’s opener will go on to temper his remarkable ability against the new white ball and repackage it for the nibbling Dukes, but that is going to take time - something England’s selectors famously do not offer opening batsmen - and there is little in Roy’s first-class record over nearly 90 matches to support the claim.

His opening partner, Rory Burns, also departed meekly - a 25-ball six brought to an end when he tried to drive at Murtagh and only succeeded in edging through to Gary Wilson, while Joe Denly managed a handful of picturebook cover drives before being rapped on the back pad by Adair.

Denly’s 23 was as good as it got for England, whose middle order displayed all the structural integrity of strawberry blancmange. 

^{Tim Murtagh celebrates his five-wicket haul}

Between them, numbers four to seven added just two runs to the total - only two batting line-ups in men’s Test history have contributed fewer in a single innings - as the home side slumped from an already precarious 42 for 3 to a terminal 43 for 7 in the time it takes to look up the number of a local scrap merchant.

Joe Root and Chris Woakes were trapped lbw, Moeen Ali left his bat hanging outside off stump like it was laundry on a midsummer’s day and then there was the curious innings of Jonny Bairstow.

England’s wicketkeeper was one of the stars of the World Cup, his combative hundreds against India and New Zealand at the backend of the group stage ensuring that his side did not limp lamely into the night. 

Here, though, his aggression led to his downfall. After marching at Murtagh, and failing to get off the mark, he attempted a hard-handed drive and was beaten through the gap between bat and pad. Whether or not impatience was a contributory factor is largely redundant; the shot was a poor one, that neither the match scenario nor the delivery demanded.

It was eerily familiar, too - a flashback to his difficult summer against India last year. England will hope it is nothing more than an isolated incident, especially with messrs Starc, Cummins and Hazlewood sharpening their talons, but The Ashes begins next week, remember. Next week! Talk about tight deadlines.

England’s innings was ‘saved’ from a place atop history’s scrapheap by a scattering of boundaries down the order by Sam Curran and Stone, but the ability of their lower order to find the fence only went to prove that the pitch was a fine one, that they had woefully underperformed with the bat and been thoroughly outfoxed by Murtagh over 128 minutes of carnage at the home of cricket. 

Now then, who fancies a go at Australia?

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