The most prominent storyline before this ICC World Cup has been the rough treatment rehabilitated Australians Steve Smith and David Warner can expect from triumphal English crowds.

But if you are a cricket fan with a sympathetic disposition, spare a thought during the tournament's 46 days for the real victims — the bowlers of all nations.

Not all will be subjected to ritual jeering or the semi-literate prattle of the Barmy Army. But in the brutal age of T50 there will be little respite for the hapless trundlers and twirlymen out in the middle.

Nothing in the lead-up has given the impression this World Cup will produce anything other than a repeat of the run-scoring orgy of 2015 with the bloated records of that frenzied edition threatened and perhaps even surpassed on pitches flatter than Geoffrey Boycott's vowels.

It says something of modern ODI cricket that during Saturday's warm-up game Australia was "restricted" to "just" 9-297, while England's all-out 285 was considered to be on the pale side of anaemic at a time when 350 is par.

The likelihood of another heavy-scoring World Cup will no doubt excite those contemporary fans who would rather binge-view the Weather Channel than watch 50 balls in a row, let alone 50 overs.

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Watch Duration: 1 minute 10 seconds 1 m 10 s Steve Smith scores a century in spite of the hostile English crowd ( ABC News )

But another runs-for-fun tournament raises the question whether the now continuous biff 'n' bash nature of the ODI format has rendered high scoring monotonous and meaningless. Or, to put it in a more positive context, has routine carnage challenged those bowlers with sufficient skill, tenacity and nerve to somehow buck the trend?

You might roughly divide the 11 World Cups into three eras in which scoring trends were attributable to the varying formats, the expansion/retraction of the competition and, now, the T20 disruption.

The first three World Cups between 1975 and 1983 constitute the 60-over era in which scores were artificially inflated by the extra 60 balls each team faced — although only eight totals of 300-plus were achieved in those 57 elongated games.

The five World Cups between 1987 and 2003 were the expansion-era tournaments in which the inclusion of more Association Nations created an artificial surge in scoring.

Even allowing for the introduction of the so-called minnow nations, the 300-plus milestone was only reached in 17 of the 156 games in this time. And it was mostly the roofs of Scottish, Canadian, Dutch, Bermudan and even Arabian mouths that were sunburnt as the ball flew over heads.

Patrick Cummins is being hailed as "Australia's Botham" by the English press. ( AAP: Dan Peled )

Then to the current era — the T50 World Cups of 2007 and beyond in which chunky bats, roped grounds, more frequent use of gymnasiums in team hotels, Power Plays and, of course, the mixture of brutal slogging and artful deflection trialled and perfected in the even-more-limited form of the game has caused an eruption of boundaries.

A 300-plus total has been reached in 56 of the past 149 World Cup games including 27 of the 49 games in 2015, when the record aggregate total of 18-688 in the group game between Australia and Sri Lanka underlined the vastly expanded scoring parameters.

But as far-fetched as it might seem to the frustrated seamer watching another thick edge fly into the crowd, the ODI scoring inflation has provided a counterintuitive advantage for bowlers, who are now the beneficiaries of vastly lowered expectations.

England's Jonny Bairstow, Warner and countless other World Cup thrashing machines will have let themselves down if they don't work scoreboard attendants across England into the early symptoms of cardiac arrest.

It is the bowlers who have a free hit because, in this batsman's world, they can be heroes by failing to fail.

In this regard, the spotlight has fallen on Jofra Archer, known hitherto in these parts as the Hobart Hurricanes' death specialist, but hailed now as the final piece in England's long-awaited World Cup winning puzzle.

England's Jofra Archer is a key addition to the England World Cup squad. ( Reuters: Paul Childs )

Although, it must be said, not before some controversy in the English media that began when The Independent's chief sports columnist, Jonathan Liew, bemoaned the reluctance of some high-profile observers, including BBC commentator Jonathan Agnew, to embrace Archer's selection upon his very recent qualification for England.

Agnew contended Archer's nomination was "a huge call" because "morale and camaraderie is a big part in team performance".

This prompted Liew to ask why the West Indian-born Archer would disrupt morale and camaraderie any more than other ex-patriots from former colonial outposts who have been fast-tracked into the England team — a list that includes New Zealand-born Ben Stokes, whose demonstrably morale-sapping and camaraderie-deflating behaviour outside a Bristol nightclub did not delay his rapid return to England's playing ranks upon his court acquittal.

Unfortunately for England's World Cup rivals, the kerfuffle seems confined to the media centre and the England players are at least publicly content with the selection of Archer, who was a predictable omission from the team that lost to Australia in Southampton.

Similarly, Australia did not play its own wild card Patrick Cummins — his rotation denying the English batters an early look at a player being flattered as "Australia's Botham" in the local press.

This only underscores the most vital equation of World Cups in the T50 age — the more runs are scored, the more valuable those few precious bowlers who can stem the flow.

Prepare yourself, then, for another slog-era World Cup dominated by the bat and won with the ball.