Eoin Morgan: The mastermind behind England’s white-ball revival who transformed attitudes, fortunes
Eoin Morgan: The mastermind behind England’s white-ball revival who transformed attitudes, fortunes
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Eoin Morgan oversaw England’s greatest embarrassment in 50-over World Cup cricket, in 2015. Four years later, he masterminded England’s crowning glory by leading the team to the ultimate prize in the same competition.
If history will remember him fondly for the latter than castigate him for the former, it’s entirely because of the change in attitude and approach that he demanded and commanded from a team that was on the verge of becoming the worst advertisement for limited-overs cricket.
It's scarcely believable that a team that only ten days back came within two runs of touching 500 runs in a One-Day International innings was, seven years back, a hesitant, plodding, conservative batting group that brought a jalopy to a Formula One race.
Mired in circumspection, afraid of failure and averse to risk-taking, England’s white-ball cricket until the middle of 2015 was a throwback to the amateur era minus the joy of playing the sport.
In the immediacy of England’s inability to make even the quarterfinal of the 2015 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, Morgan was entrusted with the task of redefining his adopted country’s philosophy towards the limited-overs game. The land that had given the world the abridged version was being overrun by all-comers. And defeat at the hands of Bangladesh at the Adelaide Oval that ushered Morgan’s men out of the 2015 World Cup at the first possible instance threatened to assume proportions of the last straw that broke the camel’s back.
This straw, however, had the opposite effect. England’s cricket bosses, alarmed at the unchecked decline of their white-ball fortunes and alive to the danger that that posed to the fan-base, as much as anything else, woke up to the reality that unless there was a radical shake-up, things would go into terminal decline. Towards that end, they gave Morgan a free hand, confident in their assessment that their Dublin-born skipper had the standing, the stature, the nous, the skills and the burning desire to catalyse the sweeping winds of change. Morgan didn’t disappoint.
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Among the first exercises Morgan and new coach Trevor Bayliss undertook after that fateful Adelaide hammering was to unweed the squad of those superfluous to the white-ball scheme of things because they weren’t perceived to fit the template the captain had unearthed.
So out went Alastair Cook, who had then only recently ceded the ODI captaincy to Morgan, as well as the crack new-ball combine of James Anderson and Stuart Broad. In one of those happy coincidences, this radical (from an English perspective) move helped prolong the careers of the two quicks, who have re-established themselves as integral cogs in the Test match wheel.
It called for courage bordering on the foolhardy to cull the iconic old in a country that, more than any other, desperately clings to the past. Cook, Anderson and Broad were household names and even though English fans were fast becoming disillusioned following a string of abject failures, Morgan wasn’t unaware he was taking a punt in delinking his legacy from the inglorious past.
Morgan’s philosophy revolved around embracing the fearless. Towards that end, the net was cast far and wide in the quest for players who would fit the bill – batsmen who weren’t afraid of failure, who didn’t look for one where a four beckoned, who were naturally aggressive from the get-go and bowlers who were versatile, multi-skilled, didn’t frown upon inculcating the modern in their arsenal and constantly sought to progress beyond the unidimensional.
The vibrant playing fields of the county game as well as the assortment of white-ball play threw up enough personnel. The trick then was in convincing them to do for the country what they were doing with no little success for their counties and their franchises.
It was here that Morgan’s man-management skills came to the fore. To ask his men to do his bidding was one thing, to convince them that they would be given a long enough rope so that they didn’t get bogged down by a string of early failures was another.
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The possibility of the establishment and the fans losing patience in the early stages of transition from the ultra-defensive to the uber-attacking was genuine, but the dexterity with which Morgan walked that tightrope ensured that England’s new-found moxy in the limited-overs game would be anything but ephemeral.
Morgan won himself breathing space aplenty by spearheading England’s charge at the T20 World Cup in India in 2016. Armed with their refreshing new all-round pyrotechnics, England wowed audiences and decimated oppositions, taking their appointed place in the final. It required a mini-miracle and four straight Carlos Brathwaite sixes in the final over from Ben Stokes for the English juggernaut to be halted.
By now, the world was alive to and fearful of the depth of powerhouse resources at Morgan’s disposal.
The consistency that characterised England’s seemingly high-risk approach was a testament as much to Morgan’s leadership abilities as the upsurge of belief and self-confidence within the ranks.
Suddenly, no target was beyond the reach of Buttler and Roy and Hales and Billings, of Morgan himself and Bairstow and Stokes. Recognising the virtue of quality spin, England invested in Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid to complement a hand-picked fast-bowling unit which became even more dangerous when Jofra Archer became available for selection in time for the 2019 World Cup at home.
A cherished dream was attained in June 2019 when Morgan lifted the World Cup at Lord’s despite beating New Zealand in the final only on a technicality. Morgan, as much as the entire team, had sung the redemption song. The World Cup triumph was as much a victory for will as it was for skill, it had been won as much in the backroom as on the park.
England’s white-ball fortunes, most likely under Jos Buttler going forward, is in extremely safe hands. The core of the squad Morgan assembled is still around, but the 35-year-old skipper had to go at some stage because the last 18 months have personally been demanding with issues surrounding form and fitness becoming more and more pronounced.
For all his contributions to English cricket, Morgan deserved a far better send-off than two ducks in his final two ODIs, but sport generally has an aversion to fairy-tale farewells.
Such is the aura surrounding Morgan’s captaincy that it’s easy to overlook the fact that he is England’s leading scorer in both ODI and T20I cricket. His retirement from international cricket will leave a Morgan-sized hole, and while that might never be filled, he can take heart from what few others have done – dramatically transform the approach as much as fortunes.
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