In the football World Cup, there are rungs of respectability for teams exiting the competition. You can suffer the ignominy of going out in the group-stage, the round-of-32, the round-of-16; or you can have the tags of an honourable quarterfinalist, a worthy semifinalist or a deserved finalist attached to your name.
Cricket World Cup, in contrast, is a boom or bust tournament. The difference between teams finishing fourth and fifth is a semifinal place and a group-stage ouster. On Thursday, at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, Sri Lanka and England will clash with the singular aim keeping alive their hopes of the former.
