So Many Questions...

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A pair of pedalos. Or pedaloes.

By Dave Tickner

The World Cup has raised some interesting questions.

Some have been answered; Charles Colvile angrily chucking rocks into the sea to refute claims the Sky chaps were sat in front of a blue screen in Isleworth was a moment to treasure.

But other posers remain unanswered.

What exactly is the plural of pedalo? Which of our features will inspire Cricinfo next? What is the point of Manish Bhasin?

And, most troublingly of all, how has it come to pass that England are now the fifth most likely team to win this tournament despite failing to produce a single competent performance?

It is, of course, a slightly misleading statement, roughly akin to saying Bolton are the fifth most likely team to win the Premiership. But it remains the case, and the tournament itself desperately needs England to beat either or both of Sri Lanka and Australia in the next week to prevent the Super Eight becoming as dull and predictable as the group stage was supposed to be.

It's a quirk of the tournament that the first round, widely expected to provide little more than a gentle preamble to the real business, actually produced two weeks of drama, intrigue and excitement while the Super Eight proceeds exactly to form, already splitting into three obvious and distinct tiers with no team able to bridge the gap.

Tier One contains Australia, Sri Lanka, South Africa and New Zealand. They've beaten each other but are yet to be troubled by Tier Two (England and West Indies), who themselves have thus far summarily accounted for Tier Three (Ireland and Bangladesh). It's enough to bore you to tiers, ho ho.

It's telling that the only compelling game of the Super Eight thus far- South Africa v Sri Lanka - pitted two Tier One teams together. It adds to the belief that the two semis and final should be stunning affairs between four genuinely exciting sides, but they will have been preceded by three long weeks where the only issue to resolve is who plays who in the last four.

The "super" in Super Eight is already starting to look as unfortunate as it did in Supersub. Perhaps the word has a special cricket-specific definition - a super-definition, if you will - meaning a pointless and unnecessary waste of everyone's time.

That is of course, unless England can shake things up with a shock victory or two over the big four, but they look about as far from a convincing performance as they did in the CB Series before something magical happened. And expecting two miracles in the same year from the same team might be pushing our luck.

But while England's continued World Cup chances may be a baffling mystery, there are some things we can be sure of; pedalos or pedaloes - either is acceptable, apparently.