England bite the dust, SL revive hopes

An 8-wicket defeat to Sri Lanka has all but ended the defending champions' chances of making it to semis

- Somshuvra Laha

It's impossible to understand what England must be going through since defending champions never had it this bad.

At their peak, West Indies and Australia were a cut above the rest with boring consistency. Follow-up acts of other sides weren't too bad either India made the semi-finals in 1987 and 2015, Pakistan made the last eight in 1996, even the most modest Australia team in their history managed to reach the 2019 semi-finals. Sri Lanka of 1999 perhaps? Even they beat Zimbabwe and Kenya. England are still in the hunt for a second win.

And it might stay that way. So tell-tale were some of the earliest signs that this capitulation to Sri Lanka could have been detected from a mile away planning, rudderless leadership, clueless batting, shambolic game awareness - England have let themselves down and it can't be good for the game if the semi-finalists are pretty much decided with 20 matches still to go.

There is no single event that stands out as England's World Cup low point. Against New Zealand, the bowling didn't quite align with the conditions in Ahmedabad. Playing away from the body against Afghanistan proved to be disastrous in Delhi.

Inviting South Africa to make first use of a Wankhede pitch wasn't wise; and attempts to overcompensate at Bengaluru -the last ODI at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium produced 672 runs boomeranged. Sometimes the opposition was better than England. The rest of the time, England kept finding new ways to lose.