England Vs Ireland Test Match Cricket
Date: 24th-27th July 2019
Series: One Off Test
Time: For each day is:
11.00am – Play commences
1.00pm – Lunch interval
3.40pm – Tea interval
6.00pm – Scheduled close of play
Where: Lord’s, London
Where to watch:
Live at the ground: There are still tickets available to watch the game at the ground, you can find tickets here.
TV: Sky Sports Cricket – Coverage starts at 10am on Sky Sports Main Event Channel and the Sky Sports Cricket Channel.
England return to the 5 day format to play their first game since being crowned world champions in the ICC Cricket World Cup. This game is very exciting for a number of reasons including being the first appearance for England to play in front of a home crowd since becoming world champions. Even though the format is different from the World Cup the reception from the crowd will be electric.
This will be the first time that Ireland will have played England in a test match and only Ireland’s 3rd ever test match. Their previous 2 test matches were against Pakistan and Afghanistan, both of which ended in defeat for Ireland. This match being at Lord’s and against a stronger team should be an even harder challenge in than they faced in their first 2 games.
Many people will view this match simply as a warm up game for England before the Ashes where England will be desperate to maintain their high standards and beat the aussies. I can see England taking this match very seriously as memories will still be very strong from when Ireland embarrassed England with a superb performance in the 2011 ICC World Cup to knock England out. In this game England were huge favourites to win the game and it looked like it would be a straightforward win after England scored 327 in their 50 overs. Ireland needed to score a world record run chase for a world cup against a team perceived to be much stronger than them. After William Porterfield, Ireland’s opening batsman fell 1st ball the challenge looked even steeper. Ireland managed to reach 111/5 off 25 overs and it looked like England would easily win. What happened from this point was quite unbelievable, I remember watching this game in an Irish pub where most people had no interest in the game. In stepped Kevin O’Brien when the score was 106/4 and at this point I certainly remember thinking that the game was won for England at this point. After just 50 balls K. O’Brien had already chalked up a ton and was the fastest century in world cup cricket. K’OBrien ended up scoring 113 off just 63 balls and Ireland in the end managed to win with a relatively comfortable 5 balls to spare.
England will not want to slip up again especially as this match is sandwiched between the World Cup and the Ashes. The England team are keen to increase the popularity of cricket in the UK and a winning team is likely to inspire future generations to pick up a bat or a ball and play the game.
Eoin Morgan is England’s Irish captain and one of the main reasons for him leaving the Ireland team to play for England was to have the opportunity to play test match cricket. Whatever you thoughts are on players changing nationality to further their career it will be interesting to see how is received by the away fans from Ireland. Eoin Morgan played 23 times for Ireland and was their start batman when he made the switch over to the England set up.
Prediction:
I can’t see anything other than an England win at Lord’s. I think England are far too strong for Ireland especially in the test format and England will have certainly learnt from their 2011 World Cup defeat not to take the win for granted.
England Team News:
Jason Roy is highly likely to make his Test match debut after being included in the Test squad for the first time on the back of a great World Cup campaign scoring 443 runs at an average of 63. It will be great to see how he gets on in the longer format of the game and will be a strong contender to make it into the Ashes squad.
England will be resting some players for this game including Jos Buttler, Ben Stokes and Jofra Archer. However, after a minor injury we are likely to see James Anderson playing again and looking to add to his England record of 575 wickets.
England Squad to face Ireland: All stats are for Test match performances.
| Player | Matches | Runs | Bat Avg. | Wickets | Bowl Avg. |
| Joe Root (Captain) | 80 | 6685 | 49.51 | 20 | 49.30 |
| Moeen Ali | 58 | 2769 | 30.09 | 177 | 36.37 |
| James Anderson | 148 | 1174 | 9.70 | 575 | 26.93 |
| Jonny Bairstow (WK) | 63 | 3806 | 36.95 | 0 | – |
| Stuart Broad | 126 | 3064 | 19.27 | 437 | 29.05 |
| Rory Burns | 6 | 300 | 25 | 0 | – |
| Sam Curran | 9 | 454 | 32.42 | 15 | 34.20 |
| Joe Denly | 2 | 112 | 28 | 0 | – |
| Lewis Gregory | 0 | 0 | – | 0 | – |
| Jack Leach | 4 | 55 | 9.16 | 20 | 24.90 |
| Jason Roy | 0 | 0 | – | 0 | – |
| Olly Stone | 0 | 0 | – | 0 | – |
| Chris Woakes | 26 | 1012 | 30.66 | 72 | 32.94 |
Ireland have named 4 potential debutant’s in their Test match squad Craig Young, Simi Singh, Mark Adair and Lorcan Tucker. Middlesex’s duo Paul Stirling and Tim Murtagh are likely to make the final 11 and if Ireland are to pose a threat then they will have to have a strong performance. Kevin O’Brien England’s tormentor from 2011 is also likely to be in the starting XI and his performance will be one to watch out for as well.
Ireland Squad to face England: All stats below are for test matches for Ireland, e.g. Boyd Rankin’s games for England are omitted from these stats.
| Player | Matches | Runs | Bat Avg. | Wickets | Bowl Avg. |
| William Porterfield (C) | 2 | 42 | 10.50 | 0 | – |
| Mark Adair | 0 | 0 | – | 0 | – |
| Andy Balbirnie | 2 | 86 | 21.50 | 0 | – |
| Andy McBrine | 1 | 7 | 3.50 | 3 | 37.33 |
| James McCollum | 1 | 43 | 21.50 | 0 | – |
| Tim Murtagh | 2 | 91 | 45.50 | 7 | 21.14 |
| Kevin O’Brien | 2 | 226 | 56.50 | 0 | – |
| Boyd Rankin | 1 | 23 | 11.50 | 3 | 44 |
| Simi Singh | 0 | 0 | – | 0 | – |
| Paul Stirling | 2 | 68 | 17 | 0 | – |
| Stuart Thompson | 2 | 60 | 15 | 7 | 18.57 |
| Lorcan Tucker (WK) | 0 | 0 | – | 0 | – |
| Gary Wilson (WK) | 1 | 45 | 45 | 0 | – |
| Craig Young | 0 | 0 | – | 0 | – |
