A Lord’s Test, the Epsom Derby and the FA Cup final at Wembley made for a congested day in the British sporting calendar, but many of those arriving at the first of that trifecta this morning would no doubt have expected England to have things wrapped up by lunch.
The mismatch between Ben Stokes’s side and their Irish counterparts across the first two days had been stark - the visitors rolled for 172 on the first day, then punished at a rate of knots by Ben Duckett and Ollie Pope on the second.
