The England hierarchy insist that they are not looking beyond the game against West Indies on Thursday, but they may also sense a few vultures circling. In London, England's cricket director, Hugh Morris, denied any suggestions that he has been discussing retirement plans with Andrew Strauss or anybody else in the World Cup squad. In Chennai, Paul Collingwood displayed a very straight bat to the same line of questioning, whether it applied to Strauss or himself.
Collingwood was not quite in presidential mode, bellowing "four more years". But the mantra for a team who have been showing all the signs of running on empty is now "four more games".
The players have been careful not to dwell on their tiredness in public – there are enough observers to point out the self-defeating, mind-numbing nature of England's build-up to this World Cup.
Collingwood delivered the party line on fatigue. "We can't make that an excuse," he said. "For players it is like having two Olympics back to back. You wait for these things to come round every four years, the Ashes in Australia and then a World Cup, and to have them so close together is not ideal. But it's changing next time round, which will be better.
"There are not many times in your career where you say if you win four games in a row you win a World Cup and if we think about that as a team and as individuals it will affect the way we are playing. We have to concentrate on what we are doing in the next four games, our confidence, our strength as a team. I think we have played well in these conditions at times so, whether we are tired or not, we can focus on that."
England have to draw comfort from somewhere after losing two tight games against teams that they are supposed to outrank by a country mile, Ireland and Bangladesh. So Collingwood thinks back to England's triumph in the Caribbean last May. "We scraped through a little bit in that Twenty20," he said. "We were close to going out of that and all of a sudden we got through and pretty much clicked and went on to win it and hopefully that will happen again."
Well, he is bound to say something like that and it is appropriate that Collingwood and Strauss should scotch any talk of retirements and keep their attention on West Indies. It is equally understandable that the rest of us should begin to think beyond this World Cup, given that England may only play one more game here. Lose to the West Indies and some strange things have to happen – like the Netherlands beating Bangladesh – for England to have any further interest in the tournament.
Strauss has been playing well enough to stay in the one-day team in the future, but he may not want to. Collingwood may want to but he may not be playing well enough. Kevin Pietersen, Matt Prior and James Anderson seem to have a greater affinity for Test cricket.
Look into the crystal ball and ask whether England will lose to West Indies on Thursday or magically walk off with the trophy on 2 April and what is there to see? Is that Alastair Cook leading out England in one-day internationals? He might be followed by Chris Woakes, Adil Rashid, James Hildreth, Adam Lyth and Craig Kieswetter. Oh, and there is a slimline Samit Patel, emerging from the gym, nibbling a lettuce leaf.
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