Colloquially, the arena is called the Cake Tin. Aesthetically, it resembles the amphitheatre in the Monty Python spoof The Life Of Brian, which was not entirely inappropriate this day. More to the point, it turned out to be a lolly jar.

England helped themselves to 6/309, which captain Eoin Morgan thought was about 25 above par. Sri Lanka reeled those in for the loss of one wicket, with a luxurious 16 balls to spare, upon which century-maker Lahiru Thirimanne declared ingenuously: "Today, it was easy for me, to be honest." After the jolt that was the New Zealand-Australia game in Auckland on Saturday, this was the World Cup returning to its former rhythm. This was total oppression of ball by bat.

England's silver lining is that it is likelier now to meet India than South Africa in a quarter-final. This matters doubly. Firstly, England won both their matches against India in the recent tri-series. Secondly, South Africa has in A.B. de Villiers an X-factor that will unnerve any team they play.

Plainly in this tournament, mere orthodox proficiency and incremental acceleration is insufficient. For England on Sunday, Joe Root made a beautifully paced century, marked out by reverse sweeps for four and six from hapless seamer Suranga Lakmal that he hit like a stockman brushing away flies, backhanded. But who pays on merely "beautifully paced" any more?

The beauty of Sri Lanka's ageless Kumar Sangakkara is that he makes his runs with none of, say, Brendon McCullum's brash flights of fancy, but almost at McCullum's tempo. That is unorthodox. Joining Thirimane at 1/100 on Sunday, he made, without any fuss or artifice, his own century from just 70 balls, an innings that would not look out of place on its own plinth. It was his second in two games, four days apart. In those games, Sri Lanka have amassed 2/644. The heart of next Sunday's SCG match is there for all to see: it is Sri Lanka's batsmen against Australia's bowlers.

England began with a flurry and finished with a flourish, creaming 106 from the last 10 overs. Root led the charge, and at the death, Jos Butler did it. The trouble was that by the time Sri Lanka got to their last 10 overs, they needed only 60, for them merely match practice. The weight of 300-plus bat-first runs has broken most sides in day-night matches in the tournament, but day matches have been another matter. For Sri Lanka on this day, 300-plus alighted as a feather.

Sri Lanka's attack had fallen apart to the extent that it had to replace bowlers in the 49th and 50th overs, Rangana Herath because he was injured and the hapless Lakmal because he was banned for bowling a beamer. In their fraying, Herath comically had called for a review of a ball that was nearer to a wide than a wicket. Their fielding grew ragged, typically a corollary of bad bowling. England also missed chances, most crucially Thirimanne early, and the compounding effect was plain to see on a team increasingly perplexed by their own stasis.

England's attack didn't collapse. It was just that four alike bowlers, all right-arm seamers, on a slow pitch, proved toothless on their own account and did not tax the Sri Lankans in terms of changing angles and trajectories. Morgan would not accept that they were too predictable. Good sides were predictably good, he said. "(But) we bowled a lot of bad balls." Asked if had a theory about why, he replied: "No."

When Thirimanne was asked which attack had been more difficult to face, England's or Afghanistan's, he did not answer for a long time. It was a pause that spoke louder than any words.

All day, the superstructure of a giant cruise ship loomed over the Cake Tin at fine leg. As victory hove into view for Sri Lanka, it slipped its moorings and quietly disappeared. Except for the perverse structure of this tournament that makes England still almost certain to reach the quarter-finals, it would not have been the only ship to sail from this corner of Wellington on Sunday.