England take comfort from Gershwin and St George

Australia have won their last 11 one-day internationals in succession. They have won the last 12 times they have played against England. They come into the match at Port Elizabeth on Sunday in quite ruthless form while England had their confidence shattered by the unfortunate experience they suffered at the hands of India under the Durban lights. Hardly worth England making the trip to Port Elizabeth? In the words of Ira Gershwin, it ain't necessarily so.

England will have taken heart from the fact that they ran Australia very close in the second final of the VB Series they played in Australia just prior to the World Cup. In fact, they should have won. Five runs was the margin between two teams that have not changed much in personnel since that day in Melbourne.

England have Craig White back whereas Ronnie Irani played in that one. Ashley Giles is also available again, while Irani was preferred in Durban and Ian Blackwell could come back into consideration. For well-publicised reasons, Australia have no Shane Warne in their line-up, but Glenn McGrath is back and firing on all cylinders.

McGrath was relentless against Namibia in the last game, taking seven for 15 from his seven overs. Adam Gilchrist snaffled anything that came his way behind the stumps to take six catches and the batsmen rattled up 300 yet again. Captain Ricky Ponting was one of the few to miss out, but he is not worried. Having got past little Namibia, he could not wait to come to grips with Australia's oldest enemy.

"Things are going really well," he said. "We came into this game going flat out and playing as well as we could. Now we're looking forward to the game against England with all our players in good form."

There is no indication that Australia will let up as they want to retain their winning momentum. But England need to win rather than just wanting to win.

The one real success for England against India was Andrew Flintoff who bowled a miserly spell and played responsibly for his fifty. He is not concerned by England's recent record against Australia. "This is the World Cup and it is a new tournament," he said.

"It's a massive game for us and, whatever happened in the winter, we will put to one side and we will just focus on Sunday. I've only played against them once in a one-day international so there is no history there."

The situation as far as England are concerned is that they could beat Australia and still not qualify for the Super Six stage. On the other hand, they could lose again and get through. It all depends on other results, but they will certainly want to give themselves the best possible chance by winning.

Can they do so? All logic, all form, all recent history says they cannot. But when have any of those factors made an iota of difference to the outcome of a cricket match? All runs have to end somewhere and a ground called St George's Park might be as suitable a venue as any for England to upset the odds.