Dubai: Captain Eoin Morgan showed himself to be a team man by putting England’s fortunes ahead of his personal glory, saying that he would drop himself in the Twenty20 World Cup, but suggested that he will be able to overcome the bad run, just the way he had done in the past.
Speaking to media on Tuesday during a virtual interaction, the England captain, who did not play in the warm-up game against India on Sunday after a prolonged loss of form in the just-concluded Indian Premier League, said: “It’s always an option. I’m not going to stand in the way of a team winning the World Cup.”
Morgan added: “As regards my batting, I wouldn’t be standing here if I hadn’t come out of every bad run of form that I’d ever had.”
The left-handed middle order batsman has scored only 82 runs at an average of 11.71 in seven Twenty20 innings for England this year and totalled 133 in the IPL. Morgan said that despite a lean patch, he would continue to go for the high-risk option.
“The nature of T20 cricket and where I bat means I always have to take quite high-risk options and I’ve come to terms with that. It’s just something you deal with, it’s the nature of the job so I’m going to continue taking those risks if the team dictates they need them.”
Morgan is also taking the positives of his captaincy and said that he has never allowed his form to affect his thinking as a captain. “I’ve always managed to compartmentalise both and treat them as two different challenges.
“Not being a bowler and being a bit older and not contributing as much in the field, I’ve loved the role of captain. You get two bites at the cherry (in) impacting the game,” said Morgan, who is chasing the record of holding the World Cup titles in the shorter formats also hinting that staying in the bio-bubble also affecting the performance.
Even though England are No 1 in the Twenty20 rankings, they are not tipped as favourites due to the absence of star all-rounders like Ben Stokes and Jofra Archer, coupled with conditions that suit the sub-continent teams better than the current Twenty20 World Cup finalists.
“I think it’ll be unbelievably special if we manage to do it,” Morgan said. “Obviously playing away from home creates challenges, and for the first time since 2016 we’re going into a world tournament where we haven’t been favourites. So again, there are some challenges, but challenges that we’ve overcome in bilateral series on previous occasions, and challenges that we’re really looking forward to.”
