Agony for the also-rans as Super Six is completed

To England supporters, there is a peculiarly ghastly symmetry about the fact that the coup de grace to their World Cup aspirations has been delivered in Zimbabwe. Just as rain deprived South Africa of a critical two points at Kingsmead last night, so it intervened in Zimbabwe's favour at Bulawayo today.

Far from being in the Super Six, England have joined South Africa and the West Indies in the group that might be termed the "What If" Three. Three captains have known the misery of watching the weather intervene to their disadvantage - Carl Hooper at Benoni, where rain deprived West Indies of a certain win over Bangladesh, Nasser Hussain, who could probably hardly bear to think about, let alone watch, today's watery scenes at Queens Sports Club, and of course Shaun Pollock last night.

No true cricket lover who saw Pollock's agonised expression as his team's hopes drained away in the Durban drizzle will have drawn any pleasure from it. But the cold light of another day must remind him that in losing to both the West Indies and New Zealand - even though the latter match was also rain-affected - South Africa left themselves an awful lot to do.

As has so often been said during this World Cup, you cannot expect to progress unless you beat the top teams. On that basis Sri Lanka and New Zealand deserved to go through, despite the solitary aberration of the former against Kenya, who have taken maximum advantage. The only significance of New Zealand's decision not to go to Nairobi rests in the number of points the two sides take through.

In Group A, the same applies to Australia, who beat everyone, and India, who beat everyone else. Pakistan, who lost to Australia, England and India, can hardly bewail their fate. England, to their credit, came closest to upsetting the favourites. If last Sunday's result had fallen on the other edge of the knife, they would be through.

Which brings us to the other "might have been" scenario for England, which is so glaring that it seems almost superfluous to highlight it. Well before the politicians got stuck in to the Zimbabwe match, it was plain that victory in Harare was England's need as well as their expectation. Australia, India and Pakistan were their three toughest matches. Suffice to say that but for the forfeiture, England could have gone through despite being beaten in two of those three. Their exit is no disgrace.

So we have a scenario that few would have put money on before the tournament. The primary hosts are out, while the two lesser hosts are both hanging in there against the odds. Not quite what the organisers had in mind - indeed rather the reverse - but there is nothing completely new about that. Remember what happened to the host nation in 1999?