So today is the day! The day it all begins! Four years ago England crashed out of the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, after a string of performances best described as, well, dismal. And now here they are, favourites to win the thing this time round. To part of me it doesn't all seem quite real.
So here are some thoughts on their very first match, some takeaways from the day...
England didn't go into this tournament changing their plans at the last minute. Sure, Archer came in late on, and there was the switch between Dawson and Denly, but it's not felt like a sign of panic - more an extra opportunity to improve. In the past it's often felt more of a question of 'well who do we pick?' rather than 'who do we leave out?'. In 2015 England brought Gary Ballance into the team for the first match, for some reason moving James Taylor down the order after he'd looked a good man for the role. They chopped and changed when things got a bit desperate, and were at no stage convincing. This time around, it's only really injury that will change that top six/seven, with maybe the odd switch around according to the match situation. With the bowlers, there's a chance for rotation and rest, and a bit of positive competition for places.
In the past, an opener getting a golden duck to only the second ball of the tournament may have been cause for panic. Today Roy and Root just got on with the job. It might not have been quite as explosive as we've seen recently for England, but it was what they needed to do. Roy, Root, Morgan, and Stokes all went past fifty, Stokes topping the lot with 89 from 79. The pundits kept saying how England should have got more, and sure, maybe they should. But it was a measure of England's recent success that a score of 311 felt that way.
Then it was Archer. The latecomer to the squad, the man whose detractors seemed to think would disrupt the team (he hardly seems the type, does he?). I think those worries will have gone now. He was bowling fast, picking up two wickets in the first ten and also delivering a nasty bouncer into the helmet of Amla (he was later cleared to resume his innings). He grabbed a third, of van der Dussen after a fifty, at a point when the slide had begun for South Africa, triggered by Plunkett's dismissal of de Kock. Archer might only have played four matches now for England, but he's already become the guy that you turn to for a breakthrough.
Ben Stokes took a catch. If you look at the scorecard, that's all you'll see, just a c Stokes b Rashid. No further comment. Oh, but what a catch. To make a comment means having to find the words. It was going over his head, he was diving towards the boundary, one handed in the air. It was going for six, wasn't it? What an absolute freak of nature, being able to take a catch like that. It's not even the first blinder he's taken for England. It was the highlight of an excellent fielding display, with Jason Roy a man nothing was getting past either.
Stokes then took two wickets in two balls to finish off the match, because who else would it be today. If we go back to 2015 one last time, Stokes had a shocker in the months before and didn't even make the squad - probably making him a rare England player to come back with some credit. So this was his entry to World Cup cricket. His presence has already been felt.
England, match one: England win by 104 runs
The ramblings of an ever suffering but ever optimistic follower of English cricket.
