Does England's flop matter?

For England, the Champions Trophy has begun not with a bang but a whimper. In Jaipur today, the only fireworks came from the crowd. On that, there will be little disagreement. The question is, will this poor performance have ramifications? Will it make any difference in Brisbane on November 23?

There are two immediate consequences. The batsmen have little form or confidence to take into Saturday’s meeting with Australia. And England now have to win that match to stay in the tournament. Whether all the England players want to stay in it, deep down, is doubtful – if they drop out early, they get a precious few days at home before setting off for Australia. But you can be sure they don’t want to be humiliated, to be the next whipping boys for the marauding gangs known as Fleet Street sports editors. Which is what will happen if they crash to a second defeat.

So there’s more pressure on England. And less on Australia, who have already been favoured by the fixture list – they begin with a nice gentle game against West Indies, who are a cut below all the other teams apart from England. It becomes ever more bizarre that those two reached the final last time.

As a team, England showed fight – but only when it was too late. The game was lost by the time the teams sat down for supper. The bowlers, who had to be in the groove from the first ball, started as badly as the batsmen had. Steve Harmison has spent this year blowing as hot and cold as he used to in his youth, and today he was both: stone-cold at the start, perfectly warm in his second and third spells.

England’s best and most accurate bowler in the two wins over Pakistan last month was Jon Lewis, and dropping him in order to give the new ball to two men returning from injury was just gormless. With Lewis to take the new ball, and Monty Panesar to come on second-change, England could just have won this match.

The individual displays were not all bad. Ian Bell was unlucky, sawn off by a bad decision. Andrew Flintoff got a good ball, and defended an indefensible total with spirit. Paul Collingwood battled away in his familiar role as the housemate who at least tries to clear up the mess. Kevin Pietersen survived a ropey start to find a one-day tempo when England were crawling along like a dud Test team, and briefly managed to bully Ajit Agarkar as if his name was Gillespie. Jamie Dalrymple showed some gumption again, with both bat and ball. Sajid Mahmood had his radar switched on and demanded respect. Jimmy Anderson made a decent return from a long lay-off.

England’s meagre total owed more to excellent new-ball bowling by Patel and Pathan than to bad batting. On the other hand, Andrew Strauss was a shadow of his Test self until he took his place in the slips. Chris Read, usually a savvy one-day player, wasted an umpiring reprieve by immediately having a brainstorm. And the sudden decision to hand the number-four slot to Michael Yardy looked like Duncan Fletcher’s worst idea since he got Geraint Jones to open the innings. Yardy is a batsman so pedestrian, he goes for a walk every time he faces a ball. His one-day batting average is 20. He’s a tidy, resourceful operator in the Dalrymple mould, not the new Graham Thorpe, and he was just getting settled in at number seven.

England are bad at one-day cricket largely because Fletcher keeps making decisions like this. In seven years he has never managed to put together a consistent wicket-taking attack, or a top order that can make hundreds. In Tests, he has done both, so all is not lost for the Ashes. But the mountain England have to climb just got a little steeper.