Morgan says there’s more to come from England team
IMPROVED FITNESS JUST ONE OF SEVERAL POSITIVES, SKIPPER SAYS
As England walked away as the champions in both One-Day Internationals and Twenty20 series against Pakistan, the obvious question was what was the key factor that made them a superior team than the hosts Pakistan.
Asked what he felt was the difference between the two teams and whether he endorsed Pakistan coach Waqar Younis’ observation that the superior fitness and youth of the England team made the real difference, Eoin Morgan gave an in-depth answer: “I don’t think there is any one thing. I think collectively as a group we are quite exciting in the way we played.
“We had 15 athletes, fitness is a priority of ours but we’re always striving to improve our fielding. I suppose the toughest thing we were going to encounter was the conditions that we are going to play here and the fact that against Pakistan on home soil is a very difficult task. I think we’ve countered that to a certain extent, but this is sort of the start of building on it.”
Morgan then added that his team’s show was not a complete performance. “I don’t think we have played a complete performance throughout both these series. I think we had two perfect performances CJ’s [Chris Jordan’s] over [super over] today and Jos Buttlers’ hundred at Dubai, two performances that at a World Cup could change the event within a side. I know there’s more to come in the changing room and I’d like to see it sooner rather than later.”
As Pakistan fans are left to discuss the ifs and buts that resulted in their team losing the final match through a super over, England revealed how they went about to win the match.
Jordan was a surprise choice to bowl the super over. He was the most expensive of the England bowlers in the tied match, giving away 39 from four overs without taking a wicket!
So when Morgan was about his choice of Jordan, he said: “We’ve been watching him in the nets and he’s our best yorker bowler and once we knew what we were going to bowl, the decision was pretty easy. Chris Woakes had a different set of skills, bowling into the wicket but we once we decided on six yorkers, we picked Jordan.”
Asked whether he had ever bowled a super over in his career and how be managed to keep the batsmen down to just three, Jordan replied: “Frankly I had never bowled a super over in my life. It was a bit surreal, really. What helped us out was that we had a real clear plan of what we wanted to do, what we wanted to deliver and luckily I was able to deliver it.”