LONDON: The hard-fought win against India in their penultimate league game revived England’s World Cup campaign. It was a remarkable comeback from the verge of elimination after suffering back-to-back defeats at the hands of Sri Lanka and Australia. Captain Eoin Morgan said England’s knockout stage had begun earlier than expected, but it helped them regroup.
“I think it has helped us because it lends itself to actually being more positive, aggressive and a bit smarter about how we play. It’s sort of been the last-chance saloon since Durham (against Sri Lanka), which has been nice in a way,” said Morgan.
Morgan, a Dublin-born who represented Ireland in the 2007 World Cup, said England’s resurgence started soon after their disastrous campaign in 2015. “It’s a culmination of four years of hard work, dedication, a lot of planning and it presents a huge opportunity to go on and try and win a World Cup,” he added.
Morgan was at the helm when England were knocked out by Bangladesh four years ago at Adelaide. Since then, England have made a lot of changes in their approach and it yielded results. By his own admission, Morgan’s captaincy is modelled after former New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum.
After scraping through to the semis, England stunned Australia and the margin of the defeat was the biggest surprise. “I think we will need to play like the way we did against the Aussies. New Zealand are an extremely tough side, with a lot of experience, a lot of skill. They were the best side in the group stage and they improved, very similar to us, from the group stage to the semifinal performance. So we are striving to improve on our performance,” added Morgan.
