Eoin Morgan, England's World Cup cricket six specialist.

 Eoin Morgan, England's World Cup cricket six specialist.

It was cricket at its most spectacular. It was cricket at its most mind blowing and it was cricket at its record breaking best. Old Trafford has rarely seen cricket like this since the likes of Harry Pilling, the inimitable Clive Lloyd, the always reliable Jack Bond, the permanently amusing David Lloyd and the immensely assured Farokh Engineer held court for Lancashire in years gone by.

Yesterday though the English cricket World Cup team held their breath as a gentleman from Ireland, blew away Afghanistan with perhaps the most destructive spell of batting ever seen at Old Trafford. It is easy to put England's rampaging 150 run win over Afghanistan into sober perspective because quite frankly the Lancashire under 18s would have taken England's helpless opponents apart and left them well and truly seeing stars.

But the Old Trafford faithful may have privately been looking forward to a riotous rout and that's exactly what they got. What they couldn't have foreseen though was that one of England's own would take up residence at the crease, take up squatting rights and simply inflict the most bloodthirsty attack on an Afghanistan team who must have wondered why they'd taken up the sport in the first place. And then there was Eoin Morgan, a man trusted with the ultimate responsibility and how he responded to the challenge.

In the space of goodness knows how many overs Morgan piled up the runs hungrily, ambitiously, ruthlessly and ferociously before releasing so many immaculate shots that if he'd been given the licence to do so, would probably have spent the best part of  next month still there and still feasting himself greedily on a run glut. Morgan though created some kind of history at any level of the game  and yesterday the purists were still rubbing their eyes in wide eyed astonishment.

Morgan blasted - wait for it- 17 sixes to all parts of Greater Manchester and even the Arndale shopping centre must have been forewarned in case the clothing department at Primark had to be cleared. Morgan scored 17 sixes high into the cricketing stratosphere, high, wide and handsome, soaring aerodynamically into the air, over roofs, terraces, seating and perhaps into the local vestry of a church where it may well have settled for the duration of this extraordinary match.

And yet it was the manner of Morgan's subsequent century from an amazing 57 balls that quite left many of us speechless, open mouthed and just delighted that somebody in an England cricket team had so recklessly thrown caution to the wind, smashed a cricket ball to all parts of the ground, enthusiastically disregarded convention and then deliberately humiliated a team who perhaps shouldn't really have been on the same field as the host country.

So this is the point when we begin to ask questions about the participation of a country whose cricketing credentials have to be closely analysed. We have to be respectful here because whatever we say could be taken down as evidence and held against us. Of course Afghanistan were entitled to be part of this global festival of cricket if only because no country at any level of world sport should ever feel excluded. Surely though this was not a competitive cricket match. But this was a World Cup and everybody deserves a chance.

By the time though Morgan had classically hooked a whole barrage of sixes to long on and off, over  the bars and taverns, arrowing over the score-boards and just beyond the reach of any citizen living in a Salford council estate, their befuddled opponents must have been desperate for the sanctuary of the pavilion where very few would have sympathised with their plight. Afghanistan were just overwhelmed, demolished, driven into the ground, made mincemeat of and made to look very silly.

England, with the likes of charismatic Joe Root, the fiercely committed Liam Plunkett, the dependable Mark Wood, the potentially match winning Jonny Bairstow and the new kid on the block Jofra Archer ready to fire explosive missiles as part of England's bowling armoury, are now gearing themselves up for and licking their lips in anticipation of the upcoming Ashes series against Australia in July. Strap yourselves in everybody. This could be quite a sporting summer.