When Nasser Hussain accused the English of treating one-day cricket as a second-class citizen, it might have been days like these that he was recalling. May 30, 1999 – the last time England played India on home turf – was the day they were forced to face up to their inadequacies in the shortened form of the game. For some unfathomable reason, England, much like their footballing counterparts, rated themselves among the favourites for the 1999 World Cup. Home advantage, so the sages said, with the white ball boomeranging in early-season conditions, would be the deciding factor. And for a while, it was all going vaguely to plan - after three comfortable victories over Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe and Kenya (not to mention a thumping loss against South Africa), England were seemingly assured of a place in the Super Six, and simply needed to go through the motions against India at Edgbaston

That, of course, was until word filtered through from Chelmsford that Zimbabwe had pulled off an astonishing victory over South Africa. England, by this stage, were 73 for 3 in pursuit of 232 for 8 – and endured a nervy night's sleep as bad weather took the match into a reserve day.

The end, when it came, was swift and depressing. Graham Thorpe, England's last hope, was triggered by a dire lbw decision from umpire Javed Akhtar, and the rest caved in meekly, collapsing to 132 for 8 before limping to a final total of 169. Javagal Srinath delivered the coup de grace, symbolically detonating Alan Mullally's stumps as he aimed a brainless mow over midwicket. The following day, England's World Cup anthem, "All Around The World", by Dave Stewart, was released to universal indifference.

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Andrew Miller is editorial assistant of Wisden.com.

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