As England rolled away from the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Saturday night, having conceded more runs than ever before in an ODI and been despatched by a record margin by South Africa, it appeared the cruellest fact of all might’ve been that, still, they were not out of the Cricket World Cup.
This tournament format and its interminable round-robin offers no hiding place, nor quick fire escape to those on the brink of crying enough.
With more than half of the group stage to go, a bowling attack impotent, a batting line-up out of nick and fitness concerns never far away, this has the potential to get uglier yet for Jos Buttler and his side.
Indeed, if Saturday’s debacle was evidence that the wheels have come off, one dreads to imagine what sort of state the chassis could be in in three weeks’ time if things go further south from here.
Heading into Thursday's must-win meeting with Sri Lanka in Bangalore, external belief is at virtually nil, few punters even bothering to fantasise about the set of results that could yet spirit England into the semi-finals and who knows where beyond. The equation is, in any case, hardly a tricky one to grasp.
“We have to go out and we have to win,” Joe Root said this week. “In some ways it unshackles us and frees us up to go and do what we do. Now we’ve just got to go and do it.”
That theory will not cut much mustard with those who recall Ben Stokes beating the same drum when predicting a response to the Afghanistan defeat last week; a lack of freedom has not been so much the issue as the lack of any semblance of form. But in their current predicament, selective memory may be no bad for this England, who must park the shambles of the last fortnight and embrace the underdog billing into which they, as defending champions and one of the best-resourced teams on the planet, have somehow slipped.
Fortunately, there is hardly a demographic more skilled in confecting false narrative than the backs-to-the-wall sportsman.
Search ‘The Redeem Team’ into Netflix and enjoy a very watchable documentary that tells the story of how the US basketball team of 2008 battled trial and tribulation (like, you know, having all of the world’s best players) to reclaim the Olympic gold medal they had won 12 times previously and on every occasion since. Only last week, England’s rugby team convinced themselves that no soul had given them a sniff of overcoming the might of Fiji in a World Cup quarter-final. Mykhailo Mudryk, desperate for a home goal to launch his Chelsea career, is still insisting he meant that chip.
So, whatever it is that England must tell themselves (except, ideally, that they are a chasing team) let them do so, so long as it is followed up with a performance to suggest conviction in their belief.
There will be no Reece Topley, their best bowler in the tournament so far, after a fractured finger ended his tournament, and the seamer’s replacement, Brydon Carse, is not expected to be thrown straight off a plane and into the mix. That means one of Chris Woakes and Sam Curran will surely earn a recall to take the new ball, while spinning all-rounders Liam Livingstone and Moeen Ali will have to come back under consideration, after Mumbai’s meltdown showed over-reliance on an out of sorts top-six to be a risky ploy.
Sri Lanka are having a similarly dank time of it, kept off the bottom of the table only by England’s and Bangladesh’s dreadful net-run-rates, though at least with some genuine misfortune to blame, having seen their bowling attack depleted by injury, including the loss of their best spinner, Wanindu Hasaranga, and best seamer, Dushmantha Chameera, before the tournament had even begun. Even so, with England’s fear factor gone, they will fancy a scalp.
Win and Buttler’s side will still be only a fraction of the way up the mountain they must now climb. Lose, though, and they will be all but down and out, with the discomforting threat of more torture to come.
ENGLAND'S SCENARIOS
Win all five matches: An unlikely scenario on the tournament’s evidence so far, but this would see England reach 12 points. Given they would have beaten Pakistan and Australia - their two likeliest rivals for fourth spot - in the process, that would probably, but not definitely, be enough to qualify.
Lose one more: With the top three teams pulling clear and the rest taking points off each other, it is possible that one team could end up reaching the semi-finals winning only five games. However, net-run-rate would be key in this scenario and England’s is currently the second-worst in the tournament.
Lose twice more: Curtains. Goodnight Vienna. Indeed, were England to lose to Sri Lanka tomorrow, they could be knocked out by the end of the week, with in-form hosts India to come on Sunday.
England remaining fixtures
Sri Lanka (October 26)
India (October 29)
Australia (November 4)
Netherlands (November 8)
Pakistan (November 11)
