Limited overs, unlimited runs

The way to succeed in this World Cup is patent: bat first, make at least 300, or lose.

There have been 13 completed matches between Test nations. Nine times, batting first and making 300-plus has been more than enough. Once, it was not. The other variation is New Zealand, who twice have won after bowling first and skittling opponents for 150 or less. The exception to all these rules was the most recent match, in which 235-7 proved to be a winning score for Pakistan against struggling Zimbabwe.

Poor old England can tell you all the ways to lose: they have succumbed by failing to chase 300-plus, by failing to defend 300-plus, and by collapsing for 123. Fleet Street is letting them know it.

The harvest of runs in this tournament has been considerably richer even than had been predicted. Not surprisingly, all these bumper winning scores have featured mighty individual blasts. Chris Gayle clubbed an astonishing double-century one day, AB de Villiers's 162 not out from 66 balls another. One day, the West Indies were labouring against Pakistan, until Andre Russell crashed 42 not out from 13 balls, and suddenly, they'd made 310-6.

There have been nine run-a-ball centuries or faster. Joe Root made one on Sunday -- and lost. The only wonder is that Brendon McCullum hasn't made one -- yet.

Just as one-day cricket livened up Test cricket, so the inflection of T20 on one-day cricket is clear to see in this tournament. It is not just about big bats and little boundaries, but new shots and expanded horizons. It has been rugged for bowlers, but even their few successes have come in a clatter: seven wickets one day for Tim Southee, five another, six and five on the same day for Mitchell Starc and Trent Boult.

Every aspect of the game has been intensified. Even the game's most plebeian skill, fielding, is exercised with T20 elan. This is mostly taken for granted, until seen in the negative: the retro fielding of England and Sri Lanka, for instance.

It would be wrong to think that this is without precedent. Licence for the attacking bent, after all, was the founding idea of one-day cricket. In the last antipodean World Cup 23 years ago, Mark Greatbatch gave New Zealand a series of startling starts. One day, still on nought, he charged Curtly Ambrose. The Kiwis were about to win their semifinal that year when a little-known Pakistani clobbered 60 from 37 balls to thwart them. Needless to report, Inzamamul Haq was run out.

Four years later on the subcontinent, Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitharana prefigured the McCullum method, founding ultimate triumph for Sri Lanka. One day against England (ever the fall guy), they were 113-2 after 10 overs. Later, there was Adam Gilchrist, the uncontainable.

But Monday's lay day suggests that the ICC at least thinks there is such thing as too much of a good thing. In a tournament in which teams go a week without playing, what was the sense of a day when no-one plays at all?