Eoin Morgan remains hesitant about Joe Root's T20 future

Eoin Morgan- England’s World Cup-winning captain- is on a mission. Reputations don’t matter to him- they never have! Take the example of Nottinghamshire’s swashbuckling batsman Alex Hales. Hales would have thought that given his precocious talent and the World Cup around the corner, he would be an indispensable part of the set-up. But, following the second drug Test failure, the opener was disposed of in a jiffy.

The only thing Captain Morgan worries about is who and how can England stake claim to their second successive world title- ICC Men’s T20 World Cup in Australia next year. During the recently concluded five-match Twenty20 International series, England’s first-choice regulars- Jason Roy, Jos Buttler, Ben Stokes and Joe Root- were rested as Morgan and Silverwood aimed to test the bench strength.

England came away deserved victors courtesy a super-over win in the series decider at Auckland and Eoin Morgan, when asked whether the first-choice players are an automatic lock in the T20 side, the English captain seemed all but certain that the likes of Stokes, Butler and Roy will make a comeback but didn’t offer the same confidence while talking about Test captain Joe Root. His initial reply was diplomatic, “It’s too far away,” as quoted by the Telegraph.

Root- England‘s Test captain- has made it clear on a plethora of occasions in the past about his ambition of playing for his country in all the three formats of the game but Morgan gave a far from a ringing endorsement about Root’s place in the T20 set-up. “Yeah, he does – and given the nature of Joe’s schedule and others, they don’t have a lot of opportunities to play Twenty20 cricket,” Morgan said.

Opportunity galore for Malan- but with a caveat

Dawid Malan, who became only the second batsman to score a hundred for England in T20 cricket during the visitors record-breaking 3-241 in the fourth match at Napier, is expected to get more chances- but with a caveat. “He’s played really well and probably the most impressive thing that got him on the tour was those first four or five games (when Malan scored several 50s) – and the fact he scored them in Australia (and New Zealand) where the World Cup is being played,” Morgan said.

The caveat is that Dawid did not look to run-off the last bowl of England’s innings when Tim Southee bowled a bouncer to Sam Billings who ducked so the ball passed through the wicketkeeper- with Malan missing the chance for a bye. “If we get guys who are not running off the last ball of the game because they want to get a not-out, there’s something to address.” Morgan was not happy with an England record total of 241 for three, because it could have been 242.

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