Twenty20 cricket allows big hitters and cross-bat sloggers to become stars. But we need a longer one-day game so that people can admire and enjoy the batsmanship of players like Sachin Tendulkar and Andrew Strauss.
Both crafted a century with cricket shots, superb timing and placement of the ball, deft touches and manoeuvring of singles. It had everything for the connoisseur. Strauss and Ian Bell virtually won the game then lost it in two balls from Zaheer Khan when he dismissed both.
From then on we lost the plot. The game was gone until the tail-enders did a fantastic job. Mike Yardy, Tim Bresnan, Graeme Swann all did their bit and finally Ajmal Shahzad played off his first ball an unbelievable shot for six that if it had been Tendulkar you would have been purring over for weeks. In the end a tie was a fair result.
• Geoffrey Boycott will be previewing all of England's games throughout this tournament, while Derek Pringle, Scyld Berry and Steve James will also bring you their thoughts on the rest of the action.
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Stat of the day: Sri Lankan paceman Lasith Malinga became the first bowler to pick up two hat-tricks at World Cups. He finished with a career best six for 38 in the win over Kenya.
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Tweet of the day: @WayneParnell: "I think that curry was not a good option. I think there might be accidents in my stomach. Hearing a lot of noises."
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Yesterday at the World Cup
Marlon Samuels, the West Indies and Jamaica batsman has turned down the chance to play in the World Cup as a replacement for injured Dwayne Bravo.
Australian batsman Mike Hussey said he was hoping for a late World Cup call-up after recovering from an injury which made him a shock omission from the defending champions' squad.
History-making Lasith Malinga played down his landmark second World Cup hat-trick, insisting that his famous four wickets in four balls against South Africa in 2007 was a greater achievement.
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Today's debate:
Do Ireland deserve Test status? Tweet @telegraphsport, or send your emails to sportfeedback@telegraph.co.uk.
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Your emails:
"Hawk Eye is a simulation. The ball didn't 'crash into' the stumps. It's not a camera! The trajectory is calculated with a margin of error. The point of the 2.5m rule is that beyond that point the technology becomes unreliable simply because any small deviation becomes greater the further you are away from the target," mails Martin Thomas.
"Is there a worse number 5 in the World Cup than Paul Collingwood? Tremendous servant in the past but time to call it a day methinks," says Jim Godding.
"We miss Eoin Morgan. Think Ireland have any more they can loan us?" adds James Fox.
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Fantasy Cricket World Cup
England captain Andrew Strauss (7) has been the surprise star of this tournament and in this form would be a wise buy today: www.telegraph.co.uk/fantasycricket.
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