England were on course for a world record score when the rain arrived after 31 overs, having already hit 280 for four, with Ben Duckett making his country’s fastest ODI century, from 72 balls. The eight Gloucestershire groundstaff then unable to prevent the square being saturated before the covers reached the middle.

“We were all pretty happy that the rain came but we weren’t expecting it to end the game,” said Stirling. “We thought we might get a bit of a rest and regroup.”

It was another horror start for Ireland’s opening bowlers, Mark Adair and Josh Little, with 60 runs coming off the first four overs – 16 more than in Saturday’s ODI at Trent Bridge – and for the second successive game it was Craig Young who brought sanity to the proceedings with the breakthrough in his second over and following up with the second wicket, four balls later.

The stats are glaring: when Young completed his spell of five overs he had figures of two for 18. The other eight wicketless overs had gone for exactly 100.

After the early mayhem Curtis Campher, no longer one of Ireland’s five bowlers, had to be introduced and it was also a rude awakening for Theo van Woerkom who was also given his first cap, in place of Andy McBrine.

The CIYMS slow left armer was introduced in the 21^st over, with the total on 176 for two, but although it took him 10 deliveries to produce a ‘dot’ ball, his 11^th got him his first international wicket, England captain Zac Crawley caught at backward point immediately after bringing up his 50.