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Never has a one-day international been so important to England as their opening and, possibly acrimonious, game against Sri Lanka on Friday. Not even when England played in three World Cup finals, and lost, were the games so intimately linked to the future well-being of the game in this country.

A mass of negative forces threaten to tear England down if they lose to Sri Lanka at Lord's, in whose impartial atmosphere tourists so often excel: to qualify at all England would probably then have to defeat India in their last group match at Edgbaston. But if they can defeat Sri Lanka, the unpleasant past can be forgotten and they can complete a decent tournament as losing semi-finalists - their best realistic hope.

England face such a wide range of outcomes, from catastrophic to laudable, because they are far more of an unknown quantity than any other Test team in the tournament. Their eleven at Lord's will not have played together before.

Only two of the squad members have played 70 internationals, whereas even Zimbabwe have six of such standing. England's squad are experienced only in English conditions. Their think-tank has been waiting until the night for everything to come right.

If England had been planning for this World Cup ever since the last one in 1996, they would not have repeated so many of the mistakes which made their last 'campaign' the shoddiest chapter in their one-day history. Once again we have a captain drained (Alec Stewart has not had a mental break for 18 months) and out of touch. Once again we have a disaffected team (for Ray Illingworth last time read the ECB after the dispute over World Cup contracts): Graham Thorpe's disobedience, resulting in a £1,000 fine, can only be manifestation of a greater discontent .

Another parallel is that the England team have been belatedly assembled, so that the players are not au fait with their own roles and everybody else's. England lost six wickets to run-outs in four matches in Sharjah last month, some by the pitch's length, as players batted together for the first time.

In the last two years, starting with the Texaco series against Australia, England's selectors have picked 33 players for 34 one-day internationals (and that excludes the Dhaka knock-out for which their Ashes team was unavailable). Why pick three teams instead of one? If that isn't uncertainty, I don't know what is. Another parallel between this time and last is that England go into the tournament with a long losing sequence in one-day cricket behind them from which they can draw no confidence. The win over Pakistan in a dead match ended a run of nine defeats out of 10.

As they beat only the amateurs of Holland and the UAE in the 1996 competition, England have lost seven of their last eight proper World Cup matches and have to go back to 1992 for their last win against a 'kosher' country. These statistics are as relevant as England's recent successes at home in Texaco series against touring teams picked for Tests.

If England beat Sri Lanka, however, all these negative factors will seem like sound preparation and they will be half-way to qualifying for the Super Sixes. Even if England lose their group match against South Africa, as they have to budget to do, they should still have a sufficient head of steam after that opening victory to go on to beat Zimbabwe and Kenya, making three wins out of four, and guaranteeing them a Super Six place, whatever happens against India. By then England will have become a hard team to beat if the ball seams.

Two major weaknesses though will prevent England going beyond the semi-finals unless conditions are in their favour. One is their inability to work quality spinners around, which has often led to middle-order panic and tail-end collapses, not least when they lost to Sri Lanka at Lord's last year.

There is too much leading elbow in English technique, and too little wristwork which can find the gaps in an in-field. Only Neil Fairbrother, and to a lesser extent Graham Thorpe, has the method to avert the trap of block, block, block, block, blast, goodnight.

Playing a million one-day games in county cricket is not worth the experience of a dozen internationals abroad in this respect. In Sharjah, against Pakistan's Saqlain Mushtaq and India's Anil Kumble, England batted as if the floodlights hadn't been switched on and it will, in truth, be a poor tournament if England can get away with such a gap in their cloistered education and win the cup solely on seaming pitches.

The second weakness is that England do not have the means to bowl sides out, except if the pitches are juicy enough to move the ball sideways for them. On something dry or bare, Angus Fraser will keep the plug in for the first half of an innings, Alan Mullally and Mark Ealham will be tidy, but Darren Gough is the only one who might take five wickets.

Even when England do take early wickets, their inclination is still to set the field back, save boundaries and concede singles, when the best teams would go for the opening - especially Pakistan who at their best swarm through a breach like tribesmen overwhelming a Khyber fort. One-day international cricket has evolved from defensive field-placings and bowling into trying to contain run rates by dismissing opponents. But England are still programmed to old-fashioned orthodoxy.

Brilliant fielding and the odd run-out would partly make good this lack of penetration in dry conditions, but again the players have not been given time to bed down in their optimum positions. In Sharjah they touched village-green rock-bottom when Pakistan's Moin Khan took two leg-byes to square-leg and England had two fielders in the semi-circles on the legside.

India's unconvincing batting did not pressurise England in Sharjah, but when Pakistan's did in the opening match, England conceded 12 runs from eight fielding errors of the kind where the culprit berates himself.

Fielding can reveal all too plainly the character of a side: in England's case, that half the players are past their prime and only one, Andrew Flintoff, is on the way up. Whereas the leading sides have a blend of youth and experience, England have somehow succeeded in combining age and inexperience.

As the last five days of preparation ebb away, England are like students going into an exam without doing enough revision. They will pass if the right questions or pitches come up - well enough to reach the semis - but will not if they don't.

Their cricket won't be the prettiest either. The bowling will be almost all seam, with the emphasis on thrift, and will be distinguished not by its variety but its lack of it. With English cricket in its greatest state of flux, however, trying to shed its tired old skin before the millennium, we cannot be choosers.