“When a man knows he is to be hanged in the morning,” said Dr Johnson, “it concentrates his mind wonderfully”. Quite so. England were in the condemned cell when I wrote about the World Cup on June 28th. They had lost their last two matches, and now had to beat New Zealand and India in order to reach the semi-final. The semi-final is known as the knock-out stage of the tournament, but each of these games was a knock-out one. Lose either, and four years of preparation, team-building and success would be judged to have been in vain. Minds certainly had to be concentrated, and it’s a tribute to them all, but especially to the captain Eoin Morgan that they were indeed concentrated as never before.
Happily for my own self-esteem, I didn’t then write them off. Predictions, which are premature judgements, often leave the predictor with words to eat. England came through these two games in style. There was the odd bit of luck of course, but then there always is. The difference between “out” and “not out” may be as small as a hair’s breadth. Be that as it may, they won both matches and were out of the condemned cell.
Somewhat to their surprise perhaps, their semi-final opponent was Australia
