Facetoface

MUMBAI: It might have been a mixed bag for England—after the high of a maiden World Cup win, Australia retained the Ashes away for the first time since 2001.

For England’s limited-overs skipper Eoin Morgan though, it was a glorious summer, the 33-year-old having transformed the ODI side after England had crashed out in the group stages in the 2015 World Cup.

In a chat on the sidelines of a Sony Pictures Sports Network event, Morgan emphasised the need to switch the focus to

T20s as the 2020 World Cup is just over a year away, and heaped praise Ben Stokes and Jofra Archer, star performers in the World Cup and the Ashes.

Excerpts:

How would you rate England’s summer?

It’s been extraordinary; particularly the World Cup win and the dramatic fashion in which we won it. It has catapulted the profile of the game back in the British public’s eyes. Around the world people really enjoyed watching the World Cup. From then, the goodwill and support that continued throughout has gone into the Ashes. It was played in magnificent spirit, was extremely competitive and the standard of cricket was extremely high.

It has been a great season for Stokes and Archer.

Since Jofra started playing international cricket, he’s gone better and better, and I think he will continue to do so. He’s a talented guy who has so much to offer.

Everybody enjoys watching him bowl. Ben’s heroism throughout the World Cup and

EOIN MORGAN, England captain

Bearing in mind everyone’s ability, we’ve a lot of guys that can bat and bowl. One of the extremely successful things we did in the 50over game was to identify everybody’s role.

the final in particular was extraordinary. That it continued into the Ashes is just heroism at its best—the innings he played at Headingley in the third Test (135* in England’s one-wicket win) was truly remarkable.

What kind of pressure does it put playing the World Cup and Ashes back-to-back at home?

It’s that change of mindset, different format, different challenge, different team and it’s the Ashes. It’s the pinnacle of a Test career, so it was a huge challenge.

Andrew Strauss (then ECB director) said after the 2015 World Cup that white-ball cricket will be the priority. A similar approach till the T20 World Cup?

Yes. The mindset has to shift towards T20. For the last four years, our priority has been the 50-over game. And we have seen T20s as opportunities to blood new players and give them experience.

How does one fine-tune as both are both formats are limitedovers?

Bearing in mind everyone’s ability, we’ve a lot of guys that can bat and bowl. One of the extremely successful things we did in the 50-over game was to identify everybody’s role. And they became very good at that particular role.