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One side-effect of Manchester United's astonishing comeback in Barcelona is that there will never again be a lost cause in sport.

So even when Darren Gough and Angus Fraser were thrashing around at Edgbaston on Sunday morning, with the target of 233 an ever-more-distant speck on the horizon, the required run rate advancing beyond eight runs an over, and only Alan Mullally to come, you felt there was still a genuine chance of a place for England in the Super Sixes.

Well, we all know what happened. Except for football fans from Manchester, two miracles in a week was asking too much. England must now watch others enjoying the carnival it laid on for the world. We all go through disappointments, but for players and fans they do not come much harder than this.

There will be better people than me to carry out the post mortem. The decision that went against Graham Thorpe, the bewildering first ever victory by Zimbabwe over South Africa, the injustice of three wins and no place in the next stage.

But it all seems so unfair on a thoroughly honourable set of men. I make no apology for my emotional response in defeat: when hope dissolves it is the heart that speaks.

Just over a week ago, at the Winston Davis benefit game in Northamptonshire, half the England team pitched up on their day off, shrugging off their shattering loss at the hands of South Africa.

They were there to support a fellow player who shows immense courage and strength in the face of enormous adversity. Davis, a former West Indies Test player, is paralysed from the neck down after falling out of a tree while helping to build a church on his native island of St Vincent.

Alec Stewart, Thorpe, Mullally, Andrew Flintoff, Neil Fairbrother and Nick Knight were there smiling in the sunshine, signing autographs and talking to fans.

Although they felt I had been unfair in criticising them for running off the field at Canterbury after a World Cup warm-up, the players took me to task with their customary grace and good humour. It is those ordinary men - and not the extraordinary sportsmen - that I feel for.

We all know what it feels like not to get that longed-for new job, to be gazumped when buying a house, to fail an exam or lose a deal at work.

But we suffer our disappointments in private, in the safety of our own homes. Stewart and his team are having to shoulder their sadness on camera; in an endless succession of action replays; in the full glare of critical headlines and public recrimination.

There is no question that a place for England in the final stages of the 'Carnival of Cricket' would have been of inestimable value to the game in these islands, struggling as it is to tempt the young away from their computer screens. But it is, perhaps, in defeat that we learn the best lessons that life has to teach us.

So as we nurse our disappointment and wonder what might have been, let us salute the England team in defeat, as we have lauded Manchester United in victory.

England's strike attack, in the shape of Mullally and Gough, has looked as dangerous as any of the others on parade. Jonty Rhodes may still be the world's most exciting fielder, but the rejuvenated Nasser Hussain runs him mighty close. With the bat, Thorpe did not put a foot wrong until fate conspired against him.

The forthcoming series against New Zealand could be just the moment for a spring clean, a time to risk experimenting with new blood.

After all, one of the joys of sport is that there is always another day. After the cup, there is always the league. After the World Cup, there is still the Test series against New Zealand.

We do not exit the World Cup in disgrace. We are left cursing our luck, just like Bayern Munich in Barcelona last week.