It was not even 18 months ago that England were carting the Netherlands all over Amstelveen en route to a world record score of 498 for four, adding what now looks a final piece to their legacy as one of the game’s great 50-over sides.
Even in that triumph there were signs that the times were a changing for the 2019 crop: Jason Roy made one off seven balls, then watched the rest of the top four blast rapid hundreds; Eoin Morgan came in fifth and was out for a first-ball duck. By the end of the series, the captain had retired.
For his disciples, as is by now well-documented, the unravelling has been spectacular, so much so that they head into the meeting with the Dutch still bottom of the Cricket World Cup standings and now not even with the excuse of being there on net-run-rate - every other team in the tournament has won at least twice as many matches.
In fact, Wednesday's game in Pune will be the first in eight years that England have played at an ICC tournament in any format in the knowledge that winning the thing is no longer a mathematical possibility. Putting fielding coach Carl Hopkinson up for media duties on Tuesday did little to ease the feeling that this is a dead rubber for a dying team, but the man himself insisted otherwise, citing qualification for the Champions Trophy in 2025 as the one thing England might yet salvage from this disastrous campaign. By the law of equal and opposite reactions, missing out is the one thing that would yet make it worse.
Needing a top-eight finish, England will have to win well against the Dutch and potentially also beat Pakistan in their remaining game depending on how the last week of this group stage pans out before things, finally, get serious, and England, at last, can take their leave.
