End is in sight but too early to call time on Buttler's boys

ALL good things must come to an end, they say. That they must implode so violently as to alert NASA’s black hole researchers, they do not

- Malik Ouzia

England, though, are having a bloody good go anyway, yesterday’s drubbing at the hands of Sri Lanka a different kind of underwhelming to the three defeats in four matches that preceded it but contributing to the same tale of a sad, sudden decline.

And whatever there is to say about the four years of missteps and inevitable reprioritisation that, to some extent, set this team up to fail (spoiler: there’s plenty), it has been sudden. Coming into this World Cup few people had England down as its best team but absolutely no one had them down as its worst.

You could make a decent case now, though, only net-run-rate keeping Jos Buttler’s side ahead of Holland and off the foot of the table, with a tougher closing run of fixtures than the Dutch. The permutations may highlight avenues that remain open across those four matches, but the eye test tells you England’s World Cup is as dead as the dodo. Done, finished, kaput.

“It’s over now, I think,” head coach Matthew Mott conceded. “I’m not a mathematician, but with our net-runrate and too many teams who are going to take games off each other.”