Sublime Joe Root leads England whitewash over Ireland in second ODI

England enhanced their status as Champions Trophy favourites but complete a series whitewash of Ireland with a 85-run win in the second one-day international at Lord's. Man-of-the-match Joe Root scored 73 with the bat and took three wickets with the ball to guide the hosts to a 2-0 series win against a spirited Irish side who improved significantly from their dismal display in Bristol.

Half centuries from Root, captain Eoin Morgan [76] and Jonny Bairstow [72 not out] pushed England to 328 for 6 from their 50 overs – the seventh time in eight ODI matches at home that they had surpassed 300 batting first. Barry McCarthy and Peter Chase took two wickets each to give the visitors hope of repeating their heroics from 2007 and 2011.

Paul Stirling hit a typically aggressive 48 from 42 balls with eight four and one six, backed up by Will Porterfield's 82 but they lacked support down the order. Joe Root took the wickets of Ed Joyce [16], Niall O'Brien [15] and Gary Wilson [13] to disrupt the chase which eventually ended in failure. Liam Plunkett cleaned up the tail to finish with three for 14 as England ran out comfortable victors - with Ireland 243 all out - and claimed their sixth straight success in the 50-over game.

Morgan's side move on to a three-match ODI series against South Africa starting on 24 may at Leeds prior to their Champions Trophy opener against Bangladesh on 1 June. Ireland meanwhile are braced to be awarded Test match status next month though their displays in their first games against England on English soil have left a lot to be desired.

"Today presented different challenges, cloud cover this morning and the openers did really well," said Morgan. "We should have been more clinical, one of us should have got a big score, but Jonny and Adil led us home really well. [Jonny] is another selection headache, but it's a great position to be in. The quality of cricket coming up is extremely good and that's what we want. Great to see Woody back, getting more overs under his belt."

Porterfield added: "I thought we were much improved today. We put a lot of things right. We kept going even through that big partnership. With the bat, just a couple of wickets behind the game. Lot of credit Barry McCarthy for coming in for a big game. We did a lot of hard work, not making easy for anyone to start, but credit to Bairstow and Rashid at the end. But lads put their hand up. After Friday it would have been easy to hide away, but we took a step forward. Even when we were six down."