• Fifth T20i: England, 257-3 beat India, 201-8, by 56 runs

• Buttler hits 131, Brook 95 as England seal 4-0 series win

Cast your minds back to February 2022: the Partygate scandal is in full swing as news breaks of the surprise birthday party held for Boris Johnson two years earlier and four of the prime minister’s top advisers resign; Russia launches a “special military operation” in Ukraine; Adele sweeps artist, song and album of the year awards at the Brits; and India beat West Indies to go to the top of the ICC’s T20 rankings. Finally, 1,601 days and two World Cup wins later, and after a humbling series of defeats across Ireland and England came to an often calamitous crescendo, they have been usurped. Instead England end a couple of phenomenal weeks on top of the world.

An extraordinary, and extraordinarily one-sided, series got the ending it deserved, with England scoring a remarkable 257 for three – breaking the record they set in Mumbai in March for the highest total ever posted against India in T20s – and though the tourists’ chase was, at least for a while, more spirited than much of their fielding they managed only 201. England won the game by 56 runs and the series 4-0.

• Ireland 182-9; India 148; Ireland win by 34 runs

• Three wickets on debut from Ireland’s Matt Hollard

Ireland defeated India for the first time in men’s international cricket with an unexpected 34-run victory over the world T20 champions at Stormont.

Ireland recovered from 51 for four to post 182 for nine, before an attack inspired by debutants Matt Hollard and Jai Moondra left India all out for 148 with seven balls remaining. This was the tourists’ first defeat since winning a second successive T20 World Cup in March.

• Record-breaking batter is 15

• T20 series begins in Durham next Wednesday

India’s Vaibhav Sooryavanshi will be required to use his own changing room for safeguarding reasons on his first international tour in England.

Sooryavanshi, at 15 years old, is expected to become India’s youngest international cricketer on Friday in a Twenty20 against Ireland in Belfast, before playing in a five-match T20 series against England, which begins in Durham next Wednesday.

Jacob Bethell’s excellence was still not enough to carry England over the line as India set up a final showdown with New Zealand

England’s first task is to stop Abhishek Sharma and Sanju Samson getting off to a flyer. As Finn Allen showed yesterday, an opener can win a semi-final all by himself.

Will Jacks belts out God Save The King like a peroxide version of a Chelsea pensioner. As soon as it finishes, Harry Brook pops a piece of chewing gum into his mouth. The young chaperones look on with mild curiosity from under their yellow bucket hats.