England will not win a World Cup in a year beginning with 2

1. Pre-tournament form is irrelevant
Jimmy Anderson began this World Cup as the second highest-ranked ODI bowler in the tournament. Whatever other failings were obvious in the England squad, Anderson at least promised reliable control and incision with the new ball, commodities many sage pundits predicted would be decisive.

In between the last World Cup and this one, 49 bowlers bowled at least 360 balls in the first ten overs of ODI innings. Anderson, in 45 innings, had the best average (19.47), the best economy rate (3.43), the eighth best strike rate (34), and the third-most wickets (36, behind Malinga (47) and Kulasekara (37), who bowled in 84 and 75 innings respectively. In short, Anderson had been the best new-ball bowler in ODIs in between the last World Cup and this one. In both tournaments, he has been, at best, statistically useless, and at worst, cricketing cannon fodder.

In four innings so far in England's almost implausibly dreadful campaign, his first-ten-overs figures are 1 for 117 off 19 overs, his sole victim courtesy a wild swipe by Scotland's Calum MacLeod. (And, to slightly dull the already imperceptible glory of that one new-ball scalp, Anderson is the only bowler to have conceded a run to MacLeod in three innings thus far.) In 2011, in five innings, Anderson's equivalent figures were 1 for 93 off 17.

The locations of the tournaments have not been in his ideal conditions, but he had had ODI success in Asia early in his career, and in his previous one-dayers in Australia and New Zealand, he had taken 46 wickets at 27.9.

Stuart Broad's ODI struggles are a long-term problem - 43 wickets at 39 in between the World Cups, and a pre-tournament ODI ranking of 54th. But Anderson, alongside Moeen Ali, was the strategic lynchpin of the team. Perhaps he is in a rapid-onset form glitch at an inopportune time. Perhaps England's many upheavals - the sackings, the reshuffles, the unfair and sneaky revolution in ODI cricket that no one at the ECB noticed - have discombobulated the entire squad. Perhaps more than 5000 overs of international bowling over 12 years and more than 20 tours have caught up with him. Perhaps he ate a poisoned iguana on a team-bonding evening and is hallucinating that he is Curtly Ambrose, which might explain the oddly short length he has been bowling. Perhaps it is a combination of all these. And more.

Bouncing rather more contentedly at the other end of the form see-saw is veteran Kiwi tweak-sage Daniel Vettori. The Spectacled Spinster had not been a significant force in ODIs for years - he has already taken as many wickets in this World Cup as he had taken in all ODIs since the last World Cup, with 8 for 118 in 36 overs of wile, scheme and craft. His economy rate of 3.33 is the best of the 65 bowlers who have sent down at least 15 overs in the tournament; his average (14.75) is tidy by any measure, although only fourth amongst the rampant New Zealand team.

The comparison with his pre-tournament form-line is as striking as Anderson's, even given the troubles he has had with injury. Whilst his economy rate had remained characteristically excellent, Vettori had essentially stopped taking wickets - 15 in 209 overs spread over 27 matches, from December 2010 to February 2015. He had comfortably the worst strike rate of the 134 bowlers who had delivered at least 100 ODI overs during that period (83.6; the next worst was Elton Chigumbura's 69.2), and he had the fifth worst average (57.8, behind part-timers Joe Root, Chigumbura, Kieron Pollard and Samit Patel). Since his return to the side last October, he had taken 1 for 280 in seven home ODIs.

What does this show, other than that form is a capricious and flighty devil who should not be trusted with the keys to your car, or with the strategic planning of your World Cup campaign?

Perhaps it merely highlights that even top-level players can inexplicably and utterly fail at World Cups, as Inzamam and Mahela did in 2003, and Allan Border in 1992; and that an ageing star can, with restored fitness and a potent team firing around him, rediscover a touch that appeared to have withered years ago. It certainly highlights the glorious/harrowing uncertainties of sport (delete according to which end of that see-saw you currently reside on). And it lays bare how urgently England need the strange, pallid World Cup Anderson to become the Regular ODI Anderson who began this tournament ranked second only to Dale Steyn among bowlers competing at this World Cup.

Steyn himself - 70 wickets at 22 since 2011 - has taken 3 for 143, with an economy rate of 5.50. Thanks be to cricket. Which can simultaneously barbecue the perfect prawn and the most inedible sausage, and serve them both in the same partly charred bap.

2. England will not win a World Cup in a year beginning with 2
At least, not until they start playing World Cups as if they are happening in a year beginning with 2. Which this one is. As were the previous three.

3. The six-week duration of the tournament does have a purpose
I am currently back home in London, after two highly enjoyable weeks covering the early group matches. I will return after spending some time with my wife, children and accountant, in time for the quarter-finals. No tournament should be long enough for someone to do that. The thunder of the gladiatorial shoot-out between the two hosts in Auckland on Saturday was slightly diluted by the knowledge that their next genuinely important match was two and a half weeks away, and the final lurking a month in the distance. No team that has been demolished three times should still have a chance of winning. Albeit that that chance is extravagantly hypothetical.

The purpose of the tournament being so elongated, other than the scurrilous and unfounded rumours that it has undermined its own dramatic quality in order to please and saturate its TV masters, is pure sadism. No other tournament gives its struggling participants such prolonged Stewing Time. England will take the field against Bangladesh in Adelaide after seven clear days of Stew. They will travel, practise, pretend to relax, and Stew.

Pakistan, should they beat UAE and lose to South Africa, face a similar seven-day Stew before their potentially decisive final-match showdown with Ireland.

The best way to avoid The Stew, of course, is to not be absolutely clobbered in such a way that every single facet of your individual and collective games is dismantled. When New Zealand next play, they will have had one match in 15 days of anti-Stew. Neither is ideal. Or necessary.

4. Mitchell Starc is unusually good at taking five wickets in ODIs
Starc's glorious, stump-splattering spell in Auckland was probably the greatest World Cup bowling performance by a defeated player, and possibly the greatest in any ODI. Shane Bond, New Zealand's bowling coach, might disagree - he took 6 for 23 bowling first against Australia in 2003, but ended up well beaten as New Zealand were skittled for 112. Starc's 6 for 28 is the third best ever analysis by a bowler on the losing side of an ODI, behind Bond and Imran Khan, who took six Indian wickets for 14 in defeat in Sharjah in March 1985. Starc's effort perhaps surpasses these two by virtue of it being delivered in pursuit of victory, and coming so close to achieving it.

It was statistically unprecedented. It was the first ever six-for by a losing bowler in the second innings of an ODI. In World Cup matches, no bowler had ever taken even five wickets in an unsuccessful defence, and only two had taken four wickets for fewer than 40 runs.

It was the left-armer's fifth five-wicket haul in his 35th ODI. When you compare him with the elite of ODI bowling, this is a staggering beginning to his career. Only 19 other bowlers have taken four or more five-fors in one-day internationals, and none have done so at a rate of more than one every 20 innings. Between them, they have accumulated their 115 five-fors in 4281 innings, at a rate of one every 37 innings.

(By another comparison, the other 29 members of the Top 30 Lowest-Averaging ODI Bowlers With At Least 50 Wickets have taken a five-wicket haul once every 36 innings.)

Starc's one five-for every seven innings, albeit from a brief career, is remarkable, and confirms the long-held suspicion that people who can bowl 150kph yorkers at the stumps are useful to have in a cricket team.

Some stats:

- England will need to win five matches in a row to win the World Cup. They have won seven of their last 24 ODIs, since May 2014. Their longest winning streak in that time: one. If one match can constitute a streak. Rather than a smudge.

- Stumps flew in Auckland during that New Zealand v Australia classic. The eight players bowled out was the most times the bowlers have shivered the timbers in a World Cup match since 1987. Only once have more players been bowled in a World Cup game - when three English and seven East African players had their ash crashed in 1975.

- I'm not finished with that stat yet. The five players bowled out for ducks in Auckland equalled the ODI record. It had previously happened only in the 1979 World Cup final.

- I am now finished with the stat. Your witness.