As the World Cup quarter finals loom large and we prepare for a morning of nervously chewing our already well-gnawed fingernails cricket fans the world over are glad for one thing – England are already at home.

Now there have been no shortage of disgruntled English journalists having a go at the mess that was the World Cup campaign. Not only were the Poms humbled at the hands of Australia, New Zealand and Sri Lanka (all three embarrassingly so) but they also managed to stumble to a defeat at the hands of the Bangladeshis. Their only wins came against the cricketing powerhouses of Scotland and Afghanistan.

Now as the sun-scorched and decidedly grumpy journalists head home the attacks on the team have become more scathing with each kilometre closer to dreary old London. This one though, written by Barney Ronay and published in the Guardian, surely takes the cake. Over to you Barney:

 It seems that in England’s hands even squawking, slavering, snot-stained failure at every level from batting and bowling, to all‑pervasive corporate claptrap, to an operetta of feuding personalities, can become brain‑manglingly dull.

…Steven Finn who has, after five years of ECB coaching, been reduced to sidling in to bowl like a sad mournful horse preparing to hurl itself under the wheels of a passing tractor…

And so here we are now with an England team it is almost impossible to get a genuine look at, an amorphous blob without edges, or areas of interest, so boring that even the debrief, with the same old talk of mindsets and sacking the coach, seems interminably dull.

I suggest all lovers of cricket and English whinging give the full piece a read HERE. Then set the alarm for 530AM tomorrow morning and pray at the feet of whichever god you believe in (mine is AB de Villiers) that we pip those Lankans.

[source:theguardian]