Time for crumbling champions to prove they truly believe in mission improbable

AS ENGLAND rolled away from the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Saturday night, having conceded more runs than ever in an ODI and been despatched by a record margin by South Africa, the cruellest fact might have been that, still, they were not out of the World Cup.

- Malik Ouzia

This tournament format and its interminable round-robin offers no hiding place, nor quickfire 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.

Heading into tomorrow’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.”