Eoin Morgan: From prodigy to World Cup-winning captain
Eoin Morgan will forever be remembered as the figure who ended the country’s 44-year wait to lift their maiden Men’s ODI World Cup title. Morgan is not only an inspiring skipper but also one of the best middle-order batsmen in the ODI format. The Dublin-born cricketer made his ODI debut in 2006, smashing 99 against Scotland. Morgan was a month away from turning 20 at the time of his Ireland debut. He represented the country of his birth for nearly three years.
A string of firsts
In 2007, at the age of 20 years and 147 days, Morgan scored 117 against Canada to become the youngest non-Asian player to smash an ODI hundred. His record was bettered by Paul Stirling and Kane Williamson in 2010. A week later, he became the first player to smash a first-class century for Ireland thanks to a 209-run knock in Dubai against UAE. The 2007 CWC in West Indies didn’t go well for Morgan where he scored only 91 runs in nine innings.
Route to England
Until April 2009, Morgan featured in 23 ODIs for Ireland scoring 744 runs at a decent average of 35.42. But a month later, he was in England’s side facing West Indies in an ODI series ahead of the WT20 also to be played in England. Morgan had dreamed of playing Test cricket for England from the age of 13. His route to England was clear as he held a British Passport since childhood thanks to his English mother.
The southpaw represented Middlesex in 2007 and was part of tours by the England performance teams and England Lions during his three years as an Irish International player. In the Bristol ODI against the Caribbean team on May 24, Morgan made his England debut where he scored the winning run as well. He featured in the WT20 opener against the Netherlands where the hosts got stunned by the Dutch team.
Leading the transition
Morgan’s dream of becoming an English Test cricketer came true in 2010 when he made his debut against Bangladesh at the Lord’s. In nearly 20 months, the left-hander featured in 16 Test matches but could only score 700 runs at an average of 30.43 leading him to concentrate on white-ball cricket only. Alastair Cook’s stepping down as England ODI skipper at the end of 2014 handed the captaincy to Morgan only three months before the 2015 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. The English team crashed out in the Group stage itself and their old-age tactics saw them draw plenty of flak in ODI cricket.
Morgan got four years to build a squad ahead of the home ODI World Cup in 2019, which they eventually went on to win. His cause was well backed by Trevor Bayliss as the duo formed an aggressive line-up of run-scorers and wicket-takers. England began to smash world records in the 50-over format and wasn’t dependent on individual performances. Their batting line-up was so strong and long that even their low-order could be trusted to do the job. All of this came together to make the English team a well-oiled machine performing in top gear at the World Cup. As Morgan rightly said, the last four years have been a process.
Over the years, Morgan turned out to be a prolific run-getter in the middle-order as all of his 13 ODI hundreds for England came batting at No.4 and lower. He is currently the leading run-getter for England in ODI cricket and also has scored the most fifties (41) and second-most centuries (13) in this format for England. Morgan is also their most successful ODI and T20I captain with 71 and 28 wins respectively.
(Statistics as of 10th September 2020)
