England cricket comment by Frank Malley With the game against South Africa all but lost the Barmy Army indulged in one last attempt at rousing the rag-tag of sportsmen who masquerade as England cricketers.

'We are the England...mighty, mighty England,' they sang.

And while you had to applaud the enthusiasm, rarely can the words of a sporting anthem have seemed so inappropriate.

Captain Michael Vaughan and his players have been mighty at the 2007 World Cup all right.

Mighty big on promises, mighty long on excuses and mighty short of delivering anything close to what the rest of the world might call international class cricket.

And so, after what tennis would call a 'dead rubber' against the West Indies, Vaughan and co. will return home with the boos of their own fans still ringing in their ears.

Not to Trafalgar Square and the premature honours which were so overcooked after the Ashes triumph of 2005, but to the realisation that a 'Full English' in sporting terms is no longer a breakfast.

It means a bowling debacle accompanied by fielding humiliation followed by a double-egg-on-the-face batting collapse.

Harsh? Not when England have failed to trouble the scorers in the final stages of the last four World Cups.

And not when so much of the underachievement can be traced to woolly thinking, poor organisation and crass management.

It is difficult to make a case for captain Vaughan, coach Duncan Fletcher and chairman of selectors David Graveney keeping their jobs.

So hard, in fact, that it is easier to join the vultures picking over the entrails of this wretched tournament and state why they should go.

Vaughan because he has proved to be singularly unsuited to the demands of one-day cricket, a worthy Test player and inspirational leader but a batsman who has not scored one century in a decade of one-day internationals.

Graveney, always affable and available to the media, but who lacks authority.

And Fletcher? A man who has run his course. One who England should thank for his vision, fitness regimes and passion for central contracts. And then pick from the queue offering to drive him to the nearest airport.

Yes, Fletcher led the nation out of the Test darkness of the late 1990s and delivered that heady Ashes triumph in 2005.

But now he resembles a man sucked dry of wit and imagination.

It was Fletcher's appeasing nature which allowed England's drinking culture to flourish, culminating in Andrew Flintoff's late-night tryst with a pedalo.

So many of England's mistakes ultimately can be laid at his door.

In the Test arena, where the choice of the fragile Marcus Trescothick for a mission too far in Australia was short-sighted, the support of the hapless Geraint Jones and Ashley Giles stubborn, and not playing Monty Panesar in the first two Ashes Tests simply risible.

In this World Cup, where if England had a coherent coaching plan then how come a 36-year-old wicketkeeper in Paul Nixon came from nowhere, while Ravi Bopara, Ed Joyce and Panesar were also the latest of arrivals into the squad?

The suspicion was that it was tombola-type selection, stick your hand in the drum and pray that a prize cricketer pops out.

That does not get the job done at the highest level.

But at least they lost, at least they are coming home early and at least now some of English cricket's ills might be addressed.

Such as how the 18 counties choose to spend the £1.5m they receive from the ECB each year. Currently too much on foreign imports. Too little on nurturing young England cricketers of the future.

The truth is the "gin-slinging dodderers" who Ian Botham once blamed for wrecking cricket are still alive and doddering and, yes, they or their sons, apparently are still ruining cricket today.

The remedy will take more than the Schofield report into England's underachievement, the conclusions of which are due sometime next month.

But here is a thought. Why not start by replacing Fletcher and Graveney with two former England captains in Michael Atherton and Nasser Hussain?

There is no shrewder or more respected reader of the game than Atherton, no more forthright character than Hussain.

Both would bring fresh faces, strong discipline and vibrant ideas while craving England success. It would take courage and huge investment by the ECB as both are well paid in the media world.

But times are desperate. This week saw a second-rate England cricket team emulate England football and England rugby, in being booed, all in the space of a few months, by their own fans.

How the mighty have fallen.