There is a certain irony in the fact that England, by a wide margin the cricket nation that cares least for the World Cup, seem hell-bent on single-handedly saving the tournament from itself.

Andrew Strauss' side have spectacularly risen above an ICC schedule seemingly designed specifically to minimise tension, interest, drama and excitement during the first five weeks of a six-week tournament.

In a tournament still clogged with dreary matches, England have produced back-to-back-to-back-to-back thrillers. Every game a cracker, every finish steeped in tension.

Clearly, this is not actually entirely good news for England. A better team would not have been involved in nailbiters against Ireland or Holland.

But a worse one would not have been involved with thrillers against India or South Africa.

This must be what it's like supporting Pakistan. Never knowing what's going to happen, whether your team will be brilliant or dreadful from one match, session, over or delivery to the next.

England could win this tournament in a blaze of glory. They could just as easily contrive to lose to both Bangladesh and West Indies and go home in disgrace.

Both options seem equally, gloriously plausible. Either way, it will not be dull.

But if England are the new Pakistan, it's reassuring to see South Africa are still South Africa.

Blessed with outrageous, unmatched individual talent but steadfastly remaining their own toughest opponents.

Sunday's defeat to England brought yet more inevitable reference to the c-word.

Choke is a desperately, lazily overused term in reference to the South Africa cricket team. If they lose a close game, they choked. If they win a close game, they almost choked.

It has become tiresome.

But. But, but, but. The label is there for a reason. Cliches become cliches because they are true on some level. Not every South Africa defeat is a choke. But that doesn't mean it doesn't happen, and on Sunday it undoubtedly did. Twice.

Of course, other teams choke and get nothing like the same attention. England certainly did it against Ireland. Australia have done it in one-wicket Test and ODI defeats in the last 12 months.

But South Africa, rightly or wrongly, are the team who have become known for it.

Perhaps it's the high-profile nature of their most famous chokes.

But perhaps it's more self-inflicted than that. For all their understandable annoyance at the word, the South Africans themselves talk about it more than anyone else.

Three South African players felt the need to stress pre-tournament that they are no longer chokers.

Which only showed it remains in their thoughts. They doth protest too much.

It has become a self-fulfilling propchecy. Aware that any close defeat will be labelled a choke, they instantly become more susceptible to such defeats.

The South Africans are understandably desperate to consign the c-word to history.

This is simultaneously beguilingly straightforward and fiendishly difficult: simply stop a) going on about choking and b) choking.