Unfashionable? Moi? Well go on, then.

Ireland look steady. Moor and McCollum playing watchfully – playing well. Potts is getting a little nip and Broad is offering *that aura* but maybe not too much threat… until.

Is it lack of patience or over-awareness of the Need to Make Statements that bundles Moor into going after one – i.e. trying to twist it to square leg – that he should be flat-batting to mid-off? And soon after, is Tector auditioning for an England slot by advancing and clipping (to leg slip!) when he should, surely, be offering the most smother-tastic of defences? Lads. Just play smart. Just for a bit. This is Lords. This is that longer format thing. Steady on.

Throw in a fine, stooping slip-catch, by the monumental Crawley and England find themselves waaay ahead, somewhat against the grain. Broad has bowled well enough, and Potts has delivered some beauts, but Ireland had looked reasonably settled: until. Bugger all for three. So Stokes can juggle and dance.

In comes the debutant Tongue, to bowl a pretty fabulous first over at this level. In comes Leach. Both can slam or twirl without a flicker of concern. This is the Settled Dreamland any bowler would look for. Get out there and play, bruv. They’re three-down and you know this could get messy. En-bloody-joy. Tongue looks like he is. His extra zap is plainly troubling the batters. 91 mph would trouble most of us.

Leach is spearing and looping just a little, to offer the foil to Tongues’ controlled belligerence. Time passes: McCollum and Stirling appear, as the fifty comes up, to be re-gathering. (When Tongue goes wide, two boundaries). This is good bowling, but not unplayable. We may be hearing Jonny B bawling ‘something’s happening’, to encourage Leach, but this is playable.

So Stokes mixes things again, and Broad returns. McCollum has a daft, slightly lazy waft. Aahs but no cigars. Half an hour to lunch. 54 for 3.
We know – England know – Stirling likes to go after the bowling: this case, Leach. A sweep. A glove. A wicket.
Again ‘traditionalists’ might ask how necessary? We get the imperative or inclination towards positivity and counter-attack, but how necessary, how wise, to offer four inches of bat, horizontally, as opposed to shedloads of vertical wood? Not all day; not ‘negatively’; but to recognise the fact of available time *in this format*. As underdogs – even if the team coach or team psychologist are denying the existence of external factors – is it not prudent, to hold, to see this through til lunch? However unfashionable? Ireland are entitled to ‘play with freedom’: they may be bloody daft to offer chances.

Tongue bends his back, impressively and with purpose, to seek a) his first wicket and b) potentially kill off this match. Then, Potts, who has bowled boldly and with heart – going full, inviting the drive – closes the session.
Ireland get through, four down, for 78. Tucker is not out 8, and McCollum has 29. Significant plusses for England are not just the wickets in the proverbial bank: Tongue and Potts, despite remaining wicketless, have looked comfortable in the environment. And the day is getting sunnier. If they can plough through this Irish order, this could be a good place to bat.

Let’s revisit the positivity argument again – conscious that in one sense there is no argument agin positivity. Of course we all want players to play with freedom and of course this as a notion and a method can be liberating. There may be no buts. Except this one: time. Time can bring ease or it can bring the squeeze. It may not always be the non-protagonist we want it to be. Ditto form and quality. It’s not necessarily a capitulation to choose restraint. This is Test Cricket. Platforms and partnership may be disproportionately important, here. Because of the time; more contentiously perhaps, because you are Ireland.

Being good and watchful and even risk-averse (in certain periods) is neither going on the defensive nor necessarily defending. When the bowling is goodish and the match situation moves against you, you are entitled to hold firm. The allegedly positive response is not the only answer – and certainly not the only way to a good outcome.