I WANT MOR
England skipper calls for improvement despite winning start in South Africa
EOIN MORGAN is expecting a big improvement from England today after staying true to his word that the performance of his T20 guns is more important than results.
A brutal 86 not out by Jonny Bairstow (below) guided them to a five-wicket win in Cape Town to kick-off their winter.
But the World Cup winning captain was clearly less than impressed by a rusty and ragged display, especially with the ball.
“I’m pleased enough,” said Morgan through gritted teeth in the aftermath of Friday’s win.
He knows his bowlers leaked too many runs on a slow surface, and his batters – bar Bairstow and Ben Stokes – did not make South Africa work hard enough for their wickets.
It is an insight into the level of expectation Morgan has of a squad of players who are either the best in the world at what they do – or very close to it.
The low base that the 50-over side roused themselves from to become world champions is not where a similar looking T20 group are starting from.
And Morgan is making clear his demands of them.
He said: “The more we play the more we will start to know the roles that we play and start to gel as a team, like we have done in 50-over cricket in the past four years,.
“It is certainly not doom and gloom, it is the start of the tour and it is nice to start with a win, but hopefully we’ ll improve and progress over the next few games.
“Whether we get the results or not only time will tell, but certainly we need to be doing the right things.
“When you win games of cricket like that and you can see you need to make up in all three facets of the game, you can be a little bit pleased.”
Seamers Tom Curran and the usually reliable Chris Jordan must improve in Paarl today after struggling on the sort of surface England could well face at the T20 World Cup next year in India. Mark Wood is itching to get involved and crank up the pace alongside Jofra Archer, but after just one game Morgan ha s shown he is not the sort of man to chop and change.