The automatic door at Londis, where I buy a paper every day, is broken – has been for two or three weeks. There’s a hand-written sign: SLIDE DOOR TO OPEN. And yet, almost every day and much to the amusement of Julia, behind the till, I find myself standing there waiting for the door to open automatically.

Cue Alan Partridge: “What a funny story…”

I know, but it got me thinking – and not just how dull and repetitive life can be, or the extent to which technology is making automatons of us all. What really struck me was that it was such a waste of being on autopilot, of being in the zone. Sadly, facing a bowler is not the same as facing a door.

A batsman can talk about muscle memory, a technique grooved through years of practice. He can have a routine, a way of switching off between deliveries, of switching back on. But entry into the zone is not guaranteed. Nor is staying there.

“Don’t think. Feel,” said Bruce Lee in Enter The Dragon, but it’s easier said than done. There’s so much to think about, for a start, and it’s not as if there is no time to think. And what if a batsman is feeling nervous? Or over-confident?

A  batsman can tell himself to relax and trust his instincts – to forget about the last ball, to watch this ball –  but that balance between relaxation and concentration – of living entirely in the moment, in rhythm – is so hard to get right. That’s assuming it can be “got” at all. More often than not, it gets the batsman – just like Londis’ door gets me.

The games within games are what makes cricket so fascinating, and there is none more fascinating than the game played by the batsman with himself. Batting is as much a mastery of one’s self as much as a mastery of technique. When it is said that a batsman knows his game it should not be forgotten that he knows himself. Knows himself well enough to forget about himself. To be in the zone.

So, England are out of the 2015 Cricket World Cup. The shock is that there is no shock.

Most shocking is to recall that England were seeded number one when the draw was made. That forgotten England ODI team – the team that rose to the top of the rankings, the team that (albeit in favourable home conditions) should have won the Champions Trophy just two short years ago – might, even accounting for the vagaries of form and fitness, have been expected to still be largely intact. The decision to move the Ashes was supposed to aid that expectation.

We all know how well that turned out.

Instead of a settled and experienced team having an unprecedented short-format focus leading up to the World Cup, England lost a coach or two, a captain, a reliable number three, a world class spinner, and, of course, a KP. Form, confidence and a lot of matches were also lost; most alarmingly, England lost the plot. Why did it take so long to jettison Alastair Cook? Why was Alex Hales never given a proper run in the side? Why, after seemingly nailing down the number three spot in the warm-up games, was James Taylor shifted down to number six? Why was he replaced by Gary Ballance? Why was Ravi Bopara dropped? Where is James Tredwell? Why was Stuart Broad picked without proof of form or fitness? Why wasn’t Jos Buttler pushed up the order?

So many questions, yet they miss the fundamental truth that, since 1992, England have invariably stunk out World Cups. This latest (and greatest) stench, produced by an incredibly inexperienced team, should come as no great surprise. Equally, it shouldn’t be too much of a stretch to imagine that even if Cook had maintained form and Jonathan Trott his mental health, even if Graeme Swann’s elbow hadn’t buckled under the strain, Steven Finn hadn’t become “unselectable” and KP unmanageable, England would still have struggled. Sure, they might have made it out of a group that required no more than beating Scotland, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. But any further? I doubt it.

ODI cricket has changed beyond recognition since the Champions Trophy. Aided by two new balls and further fielding restrictions, the true impact of T20 cricket is being felt. England are playing a different game.

It was ever thus. England have always been playing catch-up in ODI cricket – when they have been playing at all. As much as the prioritisation of Test cricket in this country is in many ways admirable, it doesn’t have to be at the total expense of ODI cricket – and it doesn’t fully explain why England, with all the money and resources and history, have produced such a paucity of world class ODI cricketers. Think about it: how many England players at any time during the last twenty-five years would have made it into a World ODI XI? Very few, if any. Trying to select a composite England ODI XI from that time is equally instructive. Marcus Trescothick, Trott, KP, Eoin Morgan, Paul Collingwood, Andrew Flintoff, Darren Gough, Swann … err, anyone else? Nick Knight, maybe. Jos Buttler.

It’s worth noting two of that list are South African, and another is Irish. Worth noting, too, the kind of characters we are talking about here. Not exactly the kind of deeply conservative, risk-averse, private schoolboys who are usually associated with English cricket. I suspect none of them would have disagreed with Shane Warne’s famous observation that coaches are good for getting to and from the ground. Unorthodox characters, then, but, with the obvious exceptions of KP and Morgan, are they unorthodox players?

The reasons for England’s failure to produce unorthodox ODI cricketers are manifold. Firstly, the aforementioned prioritisation of Test cricket, and the resulting lack of exposure to the IPL and the Big Bash. Secondly, there is the perception that mavericks are treated with suspicion. In cricket, as elsewhere in this country, anything other than a straight bat and a stiff upper-lip is frowned upon. Thirdly, there is an insularity that stems from playing in English conditions. Traditional English pitches aren’t necessarily conducive to fearless, innovative batting. Nor do bowlers necessarily need express pace, reverse swing, mystery spin, or even much in the way of variation. Jimmy Anderson can thrive at home – near unplayable at times in the Champions Trophy – but struggle overseas. Perhaps it should come as no surprise that England’s World Cup bowling attack has a sameness about it. Why would a county side risk playing a wayward quick or leg-spinner?

But talent knows no borders. The talent must be out there. Identifying it, encouraging it, realising it – all doable, surely. It doesn’t have to be AB de Villiers freakishly rare, just good enough to maintain the highs of 2005 and 2010 – hell, even the ODI team of 2012. The talent must be out there. And in the current players. Mark Nicholas rightly observed that Glenn Maxwell’s sweep shots during his whirlwind century against Sri Lanka were reminiscent of a young Kevin Pietersen, and it informed the way I watched the rest of the highlights. Brad Haddin made me question why Matt Prior – just as clean a striker of the ball – never cut it in ODIs. Aaron Finch didn’t look any more talented than Alex Hales could be, given the licence to give it a whack at the start of the innings. Broadening it out, does Daniel Vettori spin it any more than Tredwell? Is Rengana Herath any fitter than Samit Patel?

One player who could never be accused of lacking talent is Ian Bell. He has all the shots and all the time to play them. An obvious comparison is Mahele Jayawardene, but their ODI records are incomparable. Maybe Bell lacks the innate confidence to dominate, to score the kind of inevitable match-winning innings that Jayawardene regularly churns out. Clearly, he hasn’t been helped by being in and out of the side – an ODI version of Mark Ramprakash – but someone of such obvious class shouldn’t really have any excuses.

Nor should England have any excuses. We must be capable of producing a competitive ODI team. If Ireland can …