CRICKET99 Cricket Live Score ,Matches & Tournaments In June, England’s most successful white-ball captain – and arguably one of the most successful in the history of the sport – hung up his cap for the final time. Although an Irishman, Eoin Morgan has been taken to the hearts of English cricketing fans quite like no other player in recent memory, largely thanks to the transformative effect he has had on the team’s fortunes.
When Morgan inherited the side in 2015, few would have predicted the turnaround that he eventually oversaw. That’s all the more true when the inauspicious start he made to his tenancy as captain is taken into account – but just as he recognised that something was amiss back then and changed it decisively, so too has he done now by announcing his retirement.
Rising from rock bottom
Morgan took the reins of the England team from Alastair Cook in the run-up to the 2015 World Cup – a tournament at which they performed astonishingly poorly. Recording just two victories from six in the group stage, they limped out of the competition after a pathetic defeat to Bangladesh in the following round. It marked the low point of English cricketing performance in perhaps all of history.
While there were rumours that Morgan would be scapegoated and sacked as a result, the powers that be ultimately decided to keep faith with him – and what a decision that turned out to be. Not many people with a penchant for betting on cricket would have been tempted to back the Three Lions to claim cricket’s biggest accolade just four years later, but that’s exactly what happened.
World Cup glory
Morgan managed to revitalise the fortunes of the country by throwing caution to the wind and encouraging his teammates to do so the same. He intentionally selected batsmen who would always attack the ball aggressively, aiming for the boundaries even when a single might seem safer. The same gung-ho approach was replicated among his bowlers.
Of course, Morgan led by example as well. He was one of the standout performers at the 2019 World Cup, while the strength of his supporting cast (Jos Buttler, Jonny Bairstow and Ben Stokes with the bat, Moeen Ali, Jofra Archer and Adil Rashid with the ball) meant that England achieved a level of consistency in their high-stakes approach to the sport that has rarely been seen before or since.
A lasting legacy
Even if the final of the competition was only won on a technicality against New Zealand, the turnaround that Morgan engineered is quite remarkable, both in terms of the results and accolades he achieved and the style of play his team adopted. Quite simply, he saw that England’s softly-softly approach was characterised by too much caution and he instilled his colleagues with the belief that they could and would change it.
It’s perhaps fitting, then, that his tenure comes to an end in much the same circumstances. The last 18 months have been difficult for Morgan in an England shirt, with events reaching a head when he was bowled out for two ducks against the Netherlands in a recent series. His decision to step down was an acknowledgement that things need freshening up once again – but thanks to the solid foundations he has put in place, The Three Lions look to be in good shape going forwards.
A maverick of a captain, Eoin Morgan took an England team from the doldrums to the heights of the professional game. He will be sorely missed.