England’s 50-over World Cup-winning captain Eoin Morgan expressed his intentions to stay on as captain of the England white-ball squad on Wednesday despite his poor patch of form and England’s ouster from the T20 World Cup against New Zealand in the first semifinal in Abu Dhabi.
Questions were raised pertaining to Morgan’s form since the IPL, which concluded last month. Having played 39 games in this calendar year, he is enduring what is perhaps the worst form of his T20 career, scoring at an average of just 17.78, while striking at an unimpressive 118.61 across all T20 matches.
Even in the T20 World Cup, the 35-year-old hasn’t made much of an impact apart from his important innings of 40 against Sri Lanka in the Super 12 stages.
Morgan stuck to what he had previously said in an interview prior to the tournament, where he said that he would like to continue his duties as white-ball captain at least until the T20 World Cup in 2022, to be held in Australia.
“I’m still offering enough within the side. I absolutely love playing cricket at the moment for that changing room. The guys give everything. They’re at the forefront of change on and off the field and we’ve a lot of things to be proud about – I’m incredibly proud to be the leader.”
Morgan was quoted as saying.
While speaking about the game, Morgan said that his England side felt ahead for most of the match, especially after Woakes picked up two crucial wickets in the first two overs of his spell. He praised the New Zealand team, with particular compliments to Jimmy Neesham, whose brilliant cameo of 27 in 11 balls completely changed the complexion of the match.
Morgan also hailed New Zealand’s approach to the game, which was to go hard in the powerplay, steady the ship in the middle overs before going hard towards the end of the innings. He added that England were able to retain momentum throughout the middle overs but said that New Zealand did extremely well to make a comeback from a seemingly impossible scenario.
The English death bowling struggled with the wet ball towards the end of the innings, but captain Morgan refused to attach much importance towards the notable absence of Jason Roy or seasoned death bowler Tymal Mills.
“I don’t think the dew had a huge impact,. Maybe a little bit, but the Black Caps have still outplayed us. We know the dew is around. We were still right in the game. I don’t think it was a major factor, maybe an advantage slightly but not a major factor.”
he remarked after the game.
