It is do or die for England against West Indies, says Graeme Swann

Andy Bull in Chennai

guardian.co.uk, 

Monday 14 March 2011 13.37 GMT

England's Graeme Swann puts the England case, one in which a win against West Indies on Thursday may still not be enough. Photograph: Indranil Mukherjee/AFP/Getty Images

The equation is a simple one now. Bangladesh's six-wicket victory over the Netherlands means that if England lose to West Indies on Thursday they will be out of the World Cup. There are no permutations, calculations or complications that can save them, but there are a few that can knock them out, even if they do win.

They will be forced to wait and see what happens in the group's final two matches at the weekend, Bangladesh v South Africa and West Indies v India, before they know whether they are going to make it to the quarter-finals – which Pakistan have become the latest side to reach, with a seven-wicket win over Zimbabwe – or not. It is going to be excruciatingly tense week. Or as Graeme Swann put it, "a bit of an arse-nipper".

And all for the want of, among other things, a single run in that tied match against India. "There's no point in looking back on the games we've lost or tied; we know we should have done better in those. It all comes down to Thursday now," he said. "It does give things a certain amount of clarity. If we win four games we win the World Cup, which is very simple."

It was fitting that Swann was centre-stage for the England team here on Monday . Their last game at the Chidambaram Stadium was the unlikely victory over South Africa, played on a pitch that provided so much turn that England were persuaded to open the bowling with a spinner for only the second time since they started playing one-day cricket in 1971.

Swann, Mike Yardy and Kevin Pietersen bowled 27 of the 47 overs South Africa faced in that match, but Yardy has since been dropped and Pietersen has flown home injured. That leaves England with some tricky decisions to make, as well as heaping a whole lot of pressure on Swann. "If the wicket is like that again we'd be crazy not to play two spinners," he said. Crazy or perhaps just desperate – England seem to have lost faith in Yardy, and have never had much in James Tredwell.

At the same time, they have to be wary about over-thinking things, something Swann says they cannot be accused of doing at this World Cup. The groundsman at the Chidambaram has erected a series of white pagodas over the pitch to shield it from the sun and "try to keep a little moisture in it to stop it breaking up". India play West Indies here on Sunday, and he will be under pressure to deliver a flat, high-scoring surface. And as Swann acknowledged, in Chris Gayle and Kieron Pollard, the West Indies have two players who "could have the day of their lives and post 300 regardless of the pitch".

Swann had enough grace not to blame their long winter away from home for the dip in form, an explanation that has gained a lot of currency since Friday's loss to Bangladesh. "Half the other teams in the world follow a very similar schedule so I'm certainly not going to turn around and say that's why we're not playing well and whinge and worry. A modicum of perspective says that we're in the most privileged position going."

With everything that is going in Japan, he added, it would be a bit rich to turn around and grumble about a life spent in five-star hotels, though that does not seem to stop some people from doing exactly that.

Instead Swann condemned that same schedule as being ludicrous because the "overkill" of it lowers the quality of the matches spectators see. "It would certainly be easier if we played 20 less games a year, those games that nobody cares about. The one-day series after the Ashes was seven matches and I don't think there's a single person in either country who would say that's the right amount of games to play.

"We know the reasons why there are so many games and they are purely financial. Maybe one day common sense will come into it as well." He would be wise not wait for that to come true.

Pakistan, meanwhile, qualified from Group A in a rain-affected match in Kandy. Two interruptions during Zimbabwe's innings meant they had to chase a revised target of 162 in 38 overs, and the World Cup debutant Asad Shafiq's unbeaten 78 off 97 balls – backed up by Mohammad Hafeez's 49 – saw them through with ease.

Umar Gul had picked up three for 36 to help restrict Zimbabwe to 151 for seven, with Craig Ervine's face-saving 52 off 82 balls giving the score some respectability.

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