All the average sides have left Australasia now. Only the good ones are left. It has taken more than five weeks and a lot of lop-sided games to filter out the 10 also-rans.

Apart from the 40 minutes when Wahab Riaz was bowling his first spell against Australia in Adelaide the quarter-finals were as predictable as the outcome in Richmond (Yorkshire) at the general election, unless the political landscape has been transformed remarkably during the duration of the World Cup.

The gulf between the good teams and the rest has been alarming. In those quarter-finals South Africa, India, Australia and New Zealand might have been playing Scotland or the UAE, so comprehensive were their victories. Now the hope is that in the final three games of the tournament the contest can still be alive in the 99th over of the match.

There will not be much canniness in these semi-finals. The pattern is set in this tournament. In the field headlong attack is the order of the day and all the captains recognise that. They all have potent bowlers, their Test bowlers. The age of selecting miserly one-day specialists has long since disappeared. Somehow, those bowlers have to take wickets to spare themselves the torture of bowling in the last 15 overs against batsmen with the freedom to swing their mighty cudgels. Nowadays, more edges carry to third man than third slip.

The hosts are salivating at the prospect of meeting one another in the final in Melbourne next Sunday. To do that Australia must beat India in Sydney. They have been doing that all summer but India are a transformed side now that the World Cup is at stake (in a manner diametrically opposed to England’s reaction to playing in this tournament over the past two decades).

India are unbeaten but Australia, with their muscular batting and fast bowling, spearheaded not by Mitchell Johnson but Mitchell Starc, are favourites. India have the better spinners but it has not been a spinner’s tournament.

In Auckland, New Zealand, relishing playing in front of an adoring public, take on South Africa. If Australia have been indebted to the brilliance of Starc, then the Kiwis have been inspired by Trent Boult. For some reason it has been a tournament for left-arm pacemen.

The New Zealanders have been wonderfully calm and relaxed throughout, even though they can no longer cling to their usual underdog tag. Meanwhile, AB de Villiers has been feverishly insisting how relaxed his team are. South Africa’s first victory in a World Cup knockout match must help their state of mind. Having tipped South Africa in the dim and distant past before the tournament began, I’d better stick with them.

All four countries in the semi-finals have run very impressive campaigns. New Zealand, in particular, have managed to maximise their potential superbly, even though they lack the resources of England. Would Grant Elliott get in the England team? Martin Guptill, the hammer of the West Indies to the tune of 237 not out, once played at Derbyshire in a relatively unremarkable manner. Look at him now.

There is a wonderful unity of purpose about New Zealand, in stark contrast to the mixed messages we keep receiving from the ECB over the status of Kevin Pietersen. One chairman (designated to take over in May) opens the door; another chairman (of selectors) declares repeatedly that he is not part of the plans. It is all depressingly confusing. This weekend back in England there may be a preoccupation about the never-ending sagas surrounding Pietersen. The rest of the cricketing world is preparing to marvel at – and to be enlightened by – the four best teams in the world.