England must deal with low, slow wickets, admits Morgan
Eoin Morgan said his team’s sevenwicket defeat showed where England need to improve before India host the T20 World Cup in October.
“It was quite slow, low, didn’t really turn a great deal – one that does expose probably our weakness,” the captain said of the wicket after England were defeated with 13 balls to spare.
“It was really a typical Indian wicket, like we would play on in an IPL [Indian Premier League] game. We don’t play a lot on slow, low wickets. And the more that we can do that the better.
“To become better in these conditions the only way you do that is by playing and making mistakes. You tend to learn quicker if you’re winning and confident and everything goes reasonably smoothly – you can integrate the learning quite quickly.
“But equally if we have to learn the hard way, we’re still going through that process of trying to learn gameon-game so when it comes to the World Cup in seven months’ time we can be as best prepared or know more about ourselves and where we need to get better before then.”
Morgan said England were content with the platform they built after Jos Buttler fell for a first-ball duck but admitted they fell away
towards the closing stages, adding only 35 in the final five overs to reach 164 for six.
“I thought we were right in the game, we did a lot of the structure of our innings really well,” he said. “We established partnerships, we got to the point where we tried to accelerate but managed to lose wickets at different stages.
“You’ve got to give India some credit there. I thought they bowled particularly well – adapted and recognised what worked well on the wicket. And then defending that total, taking an early wicket was brilliant but India managed to get away from us quite quickly.”
Ishan Kishan, player of the match for his 56 on debut, hailed the impact of the IPL on his development. “Mumbai Indians has taught me a lot,” Kishan said.
“I’ve been there with so many senior players who have given me advice. I got a good start and I wanted to finish the game. I was looking all over the ground and I was feeling so happy that finally I am here and it is time to show my game. I wanted to prove myself.”
Virat Kohli, the India captain, said: “Ishan changed the game completely. He was attacking but not reckless and that counterattacking innings was something the team needed.”