Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
NEW ZEALAND BEAT ENGLAND BY 21 RUNS PATTY CAKE
Beaten Morgan: Players learn more from making mistakes
EOIN MORGAN admitted a sloppy defeat in the second T20 would help his players who need to understand that the struggle in international cricket is real.
The memory of an opening victory was already well faded by the time Daryl Mitchell clattered into Adil Rashid’s stumps to secure a 21-run win at the ‘Cake Tin.’
It is normally a rugby ground, but the Blackcaps like playing there having won six on the bounce and just like their rugby counterparts the night before, England were second best in every department.
Most of their bowlers leaked too many runs, especially new boys Pat Brown and Saqib Mahmood, who was making his England debut.
The fielders dropped too many catches and the batsmen took it in turns to offer simple catches.
It was a slapdash performance that was punished by New Zealand who levelled the series at 1-1 with three games left to play.
The third match is in Nelson tomorrow.
“We have to make mistakes,” said Morgan trying to put a positive spin on mediocrity. “If guys come in and smash it from the start and really find international cricket easy, I don’t think that’s a great opportunity.
“We want to see guys being pegged back and see how they react from there. Chances will continue to come and opportunities will continue to come regardless of the result.
“When you drop that amount of catches it’s not a great reflection on the performance. We didn’t create partnerships and we expect more. They outplayed us.” At least the performance was not as bad as during the 2015 World
Cup when New Zealand were so brutal in their eight-wicket win it prompted Morgan’s whiteball revolution.
England are well beyond those depths, even with a relatively young squad, thanks to the smattering of older heads who are still bringing calm quality to the side, such as Chris Jordan who was the standout performer.
His 3-23 was a masterclass for the likes of Brown and Mahmood to learn from, while his lower-order hitting to make his highest T20 score of 36 kept England in the game for longer than they deserved.
“CJ was exceptional,” said Morgan.