Anything but dull

The cricketing gods are merciless on those of us who pontificate about the game. When I, an England fan, moaned gloomily before the World Cup started that the long group stage was likely to be an interminable bore, they clearly took note and delivered the most thrilling group stage an England fan could possibly have wished for. Only to England fans, mind you, as matches not involving them have nearly all gone the way one would have predicted and the finishes have mostly been anything but close (note “nearly all” and “mostly” - the India-SA game was an absolute classic), but there's an omelette big enough for ten waiting to be made with the egg streaming off my face right now.

The paradox of England's performances is that if they manage to qualify for the quarter-finals, they will probably do so in fourth place without having lost to any of the top three in their group, which takes some doing.

Obviously it's their fallibility against the minnows that has caused the hair-tearing, rendering many young England fans prematurely bald, but it's as though they have decided to match their performance to the quality of opposition. Were we to have seen Andrew Strauss nodding in satisfaction at a handy five wides when Bangladesh were falling behind the rate, we'd all be suspecting the mother of all betting scams was in progress, but the looks of total bewilderment on the faces of everyone are utterly convincing evidence that they are as baffled as us spectators.

It is not easy to explain it because their matches against India and South Africa have shown that they possess much of the quality batting, bowling and fielding that they need.

But if you put me up against a wall and threaten to make me watch Neil McKenzie and Deep Dasgupta batting to save a Test against an attack spearheaded by Paul Collingwood and Ashley Giles bowling over the wicket, if I don't give you an answer, I'm going to have to put it down to superstition.

Superstition, because that is the only reason I can think of for the faith that successive England captains have placed in Jimmy Anderson as a bowler who can contain batsmen who are intent on hitting out, especially when the ball is pitched on what is usually called a good length. I've lost count of the number of matches in which Anderson has been called on to bowl at the death, when the only death that ensues is that of England's chance of winning. I have enormous respect for Anderson the Test bowler, but if England must pick him for 50-over games, why can't captains learn that he is only going to be effective in the middle overs?

Of course it's invidious to single out one player in what is obviously a collective failure, but I was answering under hypothetical duress.

Should England fail to progress, it will continue the team's embarrassing run of World Cup failure, but it will at least have been qualitatively different. In the past, their failures have been because they were woefully inadequate; basing their strategies and tactics on outmoded ideas that would have worked in the World Cup before last, but this time round it has been a failure of execution rather than intention. Choking, in other words.

But whatever else we can say about England's performances, they have been anything but dull – and for that at least they deserve everyone's thanks.