It lives. It breathes. It walks around. Although, it should be said, with a limp, and a wheeze, and a telling sense of glassiness behind the eyes.
As England’s World Cup staggers on into Ahmedabad for Saturday’s meeting with Australia there is a temptation to describe the remaining acts of their title defence – the defence that asked not to be called a defence; and which has now duly achieved its wish – as dead games, dead rubbers, a week long jazz funeral cortege for England’s age of white‑ball supremacy.
