Eoin Morgan, who changed the way England played whiteball cricket

Eoin Morgan hung his boots in whiteball format for England after successfully captaining the Three Lions for almost eight years.

When I asked Eoin, a dear friend having captained my franchise team Delhi Bulls in the T10, said: “All good things have to come to an end and I felt it was the right time for me to leave international Cricket.”

Morgan further added: “it’s a combination of a lot of things that over the course of time in international cricket, which has been for a long time, that has just come to an end. I am glad that I am in a sound space to understand that feeling and was aware of the decision I was taking to call it a day in international cricket.”

His announcement was expected as he was struggling to score runs in both the formats for more than a year and also was hampered by injuries, which led him to take this selfless decision in the interest of team England.

He was appointed as England’s whiteball captain in 2015, but did not taste immediate success where England were knocked out of the league stage in the 2015 World Cup, where they won just two games and lost four. But that moment he, along with Andrew Strauss, started to build a team, who played fearless cricket and won almost every series across the globe.

Barring team India, they won against every opponent and everywhere and his biggest success was winning the ICC World Cup in 2019 after a thrilling finale against New Zealand at Lord’s. Morgan also took his team to the 2016 T20 World Cup final where Carlos Braithwaite hit four sixes in the last over to steal victory from England in the final at Kolkata. He was also part of the 2010 World Cup T20 team, which England won in West Indies by beating arch rivals Australia.

What made Morgan stand out as England captain was the backing he got from his players. For any captain to be successful, it’s the most important component as a captain is as good as his team. It was seen in the way team England performed in the whiteball format in both T20 and 50 overs cricket. Robert Key, the current head of England cricket, described him as the best leader he has seen and the man responsible for changing the way England played their whiteball cricket.

When I asked him about how he feels about winning the 2019 Word Cup at home, he said he still gets goose bumps and he summed up well that the efforts put in by the team in the last four years yielded in England winning the World Cup.