England seek to defy the odds

When India were playing West Indies in the final league game, a match that would decide which team travels where for the quarter-finals, Graeme Swann foresaw a West Indies collapse, and tweeted, "We could end up in Colombo tomorrow. Last time I was there the tuk tuk man let me drive and I defeated Harmy in an epic wacky race..."

As soon as the last wicket fell, thus confirming England would play Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka, not a very enviable proposition at best of times, Swann's Twitter page read, "Start the tuk tuk..." This is not a team, unlike what many have suggested, that is longing more to go home than to play for a trophy they have never won.

Over here in Sri Lanka, a day before the game, Mushtaq Ahmed, their spin-bowling coach, entertained everyone with his impersonations of various bowlers' actions. On demand it happened. Left-arm spin first. Out came an accurate delivery that turned away. Muttiah Muralitharan after that. And then the surprise ones, the ones that had every one in splits: Malcolm Marshall and Bob Willis, accurate right from the marking of the run-up to the run-up to the delivery stride. Hearty applause followed either side of the nets. Mushtaq looked outside, smiled, and then went back to the team.

On the eve of the match that could end England's World Cup, they didn't look like a side that has just lost a player who was suffering from depression, having been on the road for five months. They didn't look like a side that has lost four players to injury (one of them, though, has come back and replaced another injured player). They didn't look like a side not sure if their most consistent bowler, Tim Bresnan, would be fit to play the quarter-final. They didn't look like a side likely to try their third makeshift opener of the tournament.

England look like a side that knows that what all they have been through is gone, for better or for worse, and matters little in the present moment. People talk about the importance of staying in the present, England have been made to live every moment of this event in the here and now.

Their crazily indefinable performance in the World Cup so far - how do you make sense of defeats to Bangladesh and Ireland, wins over South Africa and West Indies, and a tie with India? - does that job for them, making sure they don't think too far and telling them there is no point looking behind. They certainly aren't a side that is thinking of the prospect of winning both the Ashes and the World Cup in the same winter.

"Whether it's the Ashes, or the World cup," Andrew Strauss, their captain, said, "whenever we have looked too far into the future, we have come crashing down in a big heap. All we can do is try our utmost to win this game."

More than anything, England are a side that knows the fun and games are over. They know that if they make the kind of mistakes they did against Bangladesh and Ireland, they will be their last mistakes for a while. "I know the guys are just immensely excited about this," Strauss said. "We have got a lot of time between the West Indies game leading up to this one, with little else to do other than imagine how we can win this one."

Going by conventional wisdom, it is hard to imagine England beating Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka. Their best fast bowler, James Anderson, seems to have momentarily forgotten the art. Bresnan, the next best, likes to hit the deck and extract movement, which is not quite what works the best here. They have too many old-fashioned batsmen in their line-up for the subcontinent's liking. Also, how much more can they take mentally and somehow stay alive?

Then again, England haven't quite respected conventions. They have been like the erratic fast bowler who we all hate, who can bowl unplayable deliveries while bowling rubbish with a strange action. They have done the first half of Pakistan 1992 right. They don't know what their best XI is, they have lost matches from winning positions, they have won from losing ones. They have waited on results out of their hands to keep them alive. Their bowling has been hit and miss, going from pedestrian to irresistible. Yet, somehow they are alive, even despite losses to Bangladesh and Ireland.

The more difficult part of their Pakistan impersonation, though, starts now. Now they have to beat conventional wisdom. Now everything needs to come together in one unexplainable mass of awesomeness. Not many sides other than Pakistan have been able to do that sort of thing, playing continuous do-or-die games, without a settled XI, without a Plan A. The nature of the sport means if they can't manage it, England will just be a team that entertained when the tournament desperately needed entertainment, but faded away when the event became exciting on its own and had no need for them. If they do manage it, they will have a good story to tell.