England's world is turned upside down

David Lloyd's three-year tenure as coach has ended in failure, Alec Stewart's position as captain is under review and the opportunity to inspire the young through world-beating performances by the national side has been lost. After bowling and fielding to a very high standard, the England batsmen, mentally weak and technically incompetent, failed once again when the chips were down.

Failure to qualify for the second stage of the competition merely confirmed that England do not have sufficient players of world class to win a world competition, but the consequence will be felt more in the declining interest of those parts of the media that switch on and off cricket according to the success or failure of the national side than it will in the classrooms of the inner cities.

Their exposure to televised cricket will be just the same, but it was all too typical that, on Saturday evening, Radio 5 Live was leading its sports bulletins with a Nationwide League third division play-off match between Scunthorpe United and Leyton Orient rather than with England's precarious position at Edgbaston or Zimbabwe's triumph at Chelmsford.

The morale of English cricket may have suffered another crushing blow, but, as Tim Lamb, the chief executive of the England and Wales Cricket Board, the organising body, pointed out yesterday: "This is an international event being followed by two billion people.There is hardly a ticket available for the Super Sixes and none for the semi-finals and final. The carnival lives on."

Nor will it lack interest if the unpredictable nature of the event of an extraordinary weekend's cricket are a guide to the rest of the tournament. Zimbabwe's stunning defeat of South Africa was a cruel twist for a home nation that seemed to have at least one foot in the Super Six stage of the tournament before the two matches that turned group A on its head. Instead, the Zimbabwe side that England had beaten by seven wickets, on paper the ninth and lowliest of the Test nations, have qualified in third place.

Thereby, they have exposed an anomaly in the rules, because they will take four points with them into the second round and may need to win only one of their Super Six games to reach the semi-finals. South Africa, the tournament favourites, although they have finished top of the group carry only two points forward from their victory over India.

The outcome of group B will not be known until after the matches starting today at Northampton and Edinburgh. It would be unsafe, it seems, to discount the possibility of Scotland beating New Zealand or of Bangladesh overcoming Pakistan, but all logic points to a clean sweep for Pakistan in the first round and an early showdown, therefore, with South Africa at Trent Bridge on Saturday in the match between the top teams in each group. New Zealand, meanwhile, know by what margin they must beat Scotland today to qualify ahead of West Indies by net run-rate.

England share with Australia in 1992 the bitter experience of proving unable to qualify for the second stage of a tournament being staged in their own country. Overall, they played much better, especially in the field, this time than they had in the last World Cup on the sub-continent, where wins against Holland and the United Arab Emirates were sufficient to qualify. The bottom line this time, however, was that the England batting was not nearly good enough to pass modest totals of 227 set by South Africa and 232 by India.

So, it is post-mortem time once more. The era of "Bumble" is at an end, at least a fortnight earlier than he had fervently hoped. Fervour is the word for Lloyd, but, for all the improvements that he made to fielding routines and to the coaching and administrative back-up for the players, his three lively, eventful, well-meaning, controversial years in charge have ended like Ray Illingworth's before him - in profound disappointment.

Stewart's position will have to be reviewed, too. David Graveney, the chairman of selectors at least until the end of the series against New Zealand, conspicuously refused to confirm him as captain for the Test series, starting on July 1, when Graveney will manage the side with the existing group of coaches, minus Lloyd (now to become a commentator for Sky Television) but plus John Emburey as a spin-bowling coach. Graveney will discuss the options with his co-selectors, Graham Gooch and Mike Gatting.

Stewart captained England well in the field in this tournament and his wicketkeeping has lost none of its sparkle and slickness; however, his one-day batting record is poor for a player of such talent, experience and opportunity at the top of the order (only two hundreds from 120 innings) and he can survive as a one-day player only if he keeps hold of the captaincy.

He has stubbornly continued to back himself as an opening batsman, despite a prolonged loss of form broken only by a brave hundred in the Melbourne Test last December and the wholly deceptive 88 with which he started the World Cup against Sri Lanka. Whatever happens, he cannot continue to keep wicket, captain and open the batting and it is the last of the three duties that he will have to relinquish if he wants to hang on to the other two.

Nasser Hussain and Mark Ramprakash are the only feasible alternatives as captain within the present circle of Test players, but Michael Vaughan, who received top marks for his leadership of the A team last winter, is already being seen as a future Test captain and the selectors will be keen, therefore, to get him into the Test side.

The series against New Zealand might see a substantial change from established players in their 30s such as Atherton, Fraser, Hick and Stewart himself, and an attempt to rebuild with a younger group around a nucleus of Hussain, Thorpe, Ramprakash, Butcher, Gough, Mullally and Tudor.

Mental toughness and a pure technique are the two essentials for which the selectors will have to look as they sift the available talent, but it is only in fast bowling that the cupboard is not precariously bare.

May 31, 1999