world cup five-fer: day 34

Hall - destroyed England's middle order.

By Dave Tickner

1. England's top order
It's one thing looking to play solid, safe cricket at the top of the order. It's quite another to play out nine overs for seven runs before throwing your wicket away with a reckless shot. At least on this occasion at least one member of the top three is excused responsibility as Andrew Strauss briefly showed tantalising glimpses of his pre-Ashes form before being out-thought by Graeme Smith.

Ian Bell will undoubtedly get more chances to show he can transfer his undoubted talent to the one-day arena, but for Michael Vaughan, Saturday's clash with the hosts could represent his final outing in the shorter form after repeated and baffling failure to perform in this version of the game.

We learned one more thing from today as well. Duncan Fletcher was undoubtedly telling the truth when he said Vaughan and co "looked good in the nets". Batting against Jimmy Anderson and Saj Mahmood, I reckon I might look quite handy too.

2. Andrew Hall
An under-rated and sometimes under-valued cricketer, his man-of-the-match performance here gave him a rare moment in the spotlight.

After a tidy if unspectacular first spell, he came back to mesmerise England with a fine display of reverse-swing, ending with astonishing figures of 10-2-18-5. When he started his sixth over, England were slightly on the back foot, but well in the game. When he finished his eighth, the game was over.

A genuine matchwinning performance from a fine all-round cricketer.

3. KP's worst nightmare
Perhaps in Kevin Pietersen's worst nightmare he would have been caught by Andre Nel off Smith's bowling. For nought.

But caught Smith bowled Nel for three must be up there. After all the talking before the game - and in Nel's case even during Pietersen's brief stay at the crease - it was the South Africans who had the last laugh as England's most destructive weapon was disarmed with minimum of fuss en route to a victory that was close to total annihalation.

4. Ravi Bopara
The one slight silver lining in England's unremittingly cloudy World Cup sky. The young Essex allrounder is blessed with the two key attributes for international cricket; talent and temperament.

He did as well as could be expected with the tail on this occasion and has done enough in his brief international career to suggest that he will be batting far higher in the order by the end of the English summer, and knocking on the door for a Test call-up.

And he's worth his place jin the side just for the palpable sense of excitement his arrival at the crease elicits from Nasser Hussain, his erstwhile Essex colleague.

5. South Africa's chances
South Africa will be mighty confident of beating either New Zealand or Sri Lanka at this ground in the final, but the problem is they must first overcome Australia in St Lucia which may prove slightly tougher.

Better teams than England will still expect to exploit their samey bowling attack and put the pressure on the Proteas' batting, but in these conditions they will be a match for anyone.

Unfortunately for Graeme Smith and his men, it's harder to say the same thing about the semi-final.