Three out of four semi-finalists are from Group A, perhaps reflected in how much more clearly decided that group was and much earlier.
England
CAN win, but I don't fancy their chances. Too many of the players who were already here have underperformed, the replacements lack experience. Perhaps instead of reducing the ODI schedules England should increase them BUT use them to blood players instead of wear their Test cricketers out.......................
My XI
Strauss - 329 runs @ 54.83
Trott - 336 runs @ 56.00
Bell - 220 runs @ 36.67
Morgan - 70 runs @ 35.00
Bopara - 110 runs @ 36.67 & 2 wkts @ 20.50
Prior - 56 runs @ 11.20
Rashid - n/a
Swann - 60 runs @ 20.00 & 12 wkts @ 20.67
Bresnan - 41 runs @ 10.25 & 9 wkts @ 29.89
Tredwell - 9 & 4/48
Tremlett - 3 & 0/47
Not much we can do about picking Prior, that mistake was made before the aussie series was over. You could risk Dernbach over Tremlett (and Anderson), any one of them could do well or badly so I'd give Tremlett another chance (at least he has bowled, but not had a chance to fail fully like Anderson)
Could we give the gloves to Morgan or Collingwood? That would be the only alternative option I could come up with, gives an extra batting slot but we have more bowling back-up than batting with only six batsmen to choose from yet four seamers in a World Cup where you are more likely to play 2-3 spinners
All the batsmen bar Collingwood have good averages, but hardly surprising considering we've played a couple of minnows and scored 296+ three times with an average total of 267/8 off 48.5 overs.
I hope we prepare properly for the next World Cup, I seriously doubt it because the selectors/ECB haven't woken up to the fact we need to and are too far behind the leading countries in ODIs when we were once one of the very best.
England
World Cups 1-5 : Runners-Up x3, Semi-Finalists x2
World Cups 6-9 : Quarter-Finals x1, Super 8 x1, Groups x2
in 1996 that Quarter-Final was reached without beating a Test nation. England reached the "super eight" in 2007 in similar fashion, losing to New Zealand but beating Kenya and Canada. In the "super eight" England lost to Sri Lanka, Australia and South Africa, beating just Bangladesh, Ireland and West Indies so little better than beating one decent side all World Cup.
England have been a shambles for years, while England may be arguably better than average in Tests, they are well below (Test nation) average in ODIs.