Taylor - and the hope that hurts

It's the hope that hurts.

Every four years, with very little evidence to justify it, England supporters - be it in football or cricket - allow themselves just a glimmer of hope going into a the World Cup. They convince themselves that, if the team plays to potential, if the late call-ups work, if they have a bit of luck and the stars collide and the moon aligns, this time it will be different.

And then it turns out to be grimly familiar. The hope looks like hubris and we kick ourselves for falling into the trap yet again.

And yet... and yet.

You can feel the sap rising in this England team by the day. You can see the emergence of a settled XI, you can see a balanced attack and a batting line-up containing enough resilience and fire-power to cope in most circumstances. Most of all, you can see just a little belief seeping back into a team that had been beaten like a snare drum in recent times.

While nobody is tipping them as favourites, they look dangerous outsiders in a World Cup in which few would have given them any hope a couple of months ago.

On the face of it, such claims might seem absurd. Before the victory against India in Brisbane, England had won just three of their last 14 completed ODIs. Their two recent wins have come on the sort of bouncy wickets on which India have often looked uncomfortable and Australia, the opponents in the final of this tournament on Sunday and on the opening day of the World Cup, offer a far tougher proposition.

Neither was this a wholly convincing performance. England slipped to 66 for 5 in the early part of their run chase and their bowlers tarnished an otherwise impressive display by dropping short and conceding 35 to India's tenth-wicket pair.

Ravi Bopara provided no defence to those who say he is keeping a specialist batsman out of the side - he is an allrounder with one wicket in his last 11 ODIs and no score of 30 in his last seven - and Stuart Broad is still striving to return to full speed after his knee operation.

And, despite the excellence of their partnership, both James Taylor and Jos Buttler will know they should have seen their side home. There will be days where their failure to do so costs their side the match.

But there are unmistakable signs of improvement. Chris Woakes, again the quickest member of the England attack, is a much-improved limited-overs bowler who is growing with the extra responsibility the management have given him; Moeen Ali is justifying his selection as a spinner even before his batting is taken into consideration; and, with the likes of Ian Bell and Eoin Morgan producing encouraging innings in recent days, there is a sense of a puzzle that is finally, after much agonising, falling into place.

Bell's return has even improved England's fielding - it is hard to imagine Alastair Cook taking the outstanding slip catch Bell claimed to dismiss Stuart Binny - and England's bowlers, after conceding 71 wides in seven ODIs against Sri Lanka, have tightened up to that extent that they have not conceded more than three in any match in this tri-series.

And while the England of old would have allowed the pressure to overwhelm them - this is a side that before Brisbane had been bowled out in 10 of their last 13 ODI innings - here they found a pair to bend the game to their will. Taylor and Buttler, aged 25 and 24 respectively, can go on to win many games for their country.

In Taylor England have a beautifully ugly batsman. That is, a batsman who relishes the fight to such an extent that, even on difficult pitches like this, even when he is struggling for fluency, relishes the battle. In a line-up not lacking style - is there a more aesthetically pleasing opening partnership than Bell and Moeen at the World Cup? - he adds the substance.

Such is Taylor's unorthodoxy that, when things go wrong, they will look particularly ugly. So he will fall leg before playing across the line, as he did to Mitchell Starc in Sydney, or seem to struggle outside off stump, as he did in the early stages of his innings here.

But it is foolish to dismiss him - as some have - on that basis. A man averaging in excess of 52 in List A cricket is a man who has conquered in all scenarios and all surfaces. It is a man who has the ability to survive while pushing on. A man who has found his own way to overcome. There will be many more days when those shots off his legs drive bowlers to distraction and force them into giving him width outside off stump.

Most of all, he offers composure. As a teenager at Leicestershire, he became the key man in a struggling batting line-up. And, as a young captain of Nottinghamshire, he has shown himself comfortable with responsibility.

He can play the role of calm builder - as he did here - or he can thrash bowlers off their game with surprising power and a wide range of unorthodox shots. His pulls and slog-sweeps will be a feature of his ODI career.

County cricket has many critics, but Taylor learned the skills that won this game in that environment. He learned to cope with two-paced pitches, low run-chases and building pressure. He learned to pinch singles and rotate the strike. He learned to back himself, whatever the situation. With four half-centuries in his eight ODI innings since his recall, he has gone a long way to filling the hole left by the absence of Jonathan Trott.

While Taylor might not have Trott's defensive game outside off stump, he also has a couple of weapons that Trott did not. He only struck four boundaries, but his paddle sweep and running between the wickets relieved the pressure just as India appeared to be taking a grip.

His job was made far easier by the contribution of Buttler. England's keeper had been, until now, one of the few men not to have performed in this series. It had been seven ODI innings since he reached 30 and, while he was in no danger of being dropped, he perhaps required a match-turning contribution like this to go into the World Cup with his confidence high.

This was a reminder that he possesses outrageous talent. On a pitch on which no other batsman looked fluent, he struck seven sweet fours - as many as the rest of the England batsmen combined - and played a late cut and reverse sweep of unusual quality. It meant Taylor could knock the ball into gaps and was not forced into undue risk. It was mature, intelligent limited-overs cricket.

The sense remains that this World Cup will come just a bit early for an England side in a rebuilding phase. But they're heading in the right direction.