Twitter Reactions: England snatches away the ‘Maiden Test victory’ opportunity from Ireland

England started the third day of play in the Test match against Ireland with an overnight score of 303/9. Ideally, the hosts would have looked to push the lead past 200 before they were bowled out. But Stuart Thompson had other ideas. All he needed was one delivery to clear up Olly Stone and put curtains on England’s innings. He got through the gate and bowled the batsman for a duck as he finished with a three-wicket haul.

Ireland had a wonderful opportunity in front of them to win their first-ever Test match. And winning it against a side like England would have meant the world to them. All they needed to do was to score 182 runs in the fourth innings of the game. There was plenty of time left in the game and that wasn’t a constraint. Moreover, the pitch was good enough to bat on and they had a chance to hog all the limelight.

England doesn’t take too long to wrap things up

Ireland would have fancied their chances at the innings break. They had to apply themselves well. However, their batsmen had no answers to the spells from Stuart Broad and Chris Woakes. They kept queuing back to the pavilion one after another as if it was a race. Their skipper Ed Pollock gave up early and got out for just 2 runs.

Another important player, Andrew Balbirnie couldn’t withstand the fiery English bowling and perished after scoring 5 runs. Both Stuart Broad and Chris Woakes managed to extract a great deal of swing with the new ball. They were literally unplayable and moved the ball both the ways. Most of the Ireland batsmen failed to see the new ball off and kept gifting the opposition their wickets.

Opener James McCollum was the only batsman in the line-up who managed to get past 10 runs. However, he also got out to Woakes after scoring 11 runs. Ireland was bowled out for 38 runs in no time. Broad and Woakes picked up 4 and 6 wickets each as England won the match by a massive 143-run margin. Twitterati was shocked with this performance from Ireland. They expected them to put up a better fight. The England fans rejoiced after this fabulous comeback and were all praise for Stuart Broad and Chris Woakes.

Here is how Twitterati reacted to England’s win: