Eoin Morgan resting himself riles Michael Vaughan

South Africa did an exceptional job to pull off a win in the second T20 played at Taunton on Friday. By courtesy of that win, South Africa came back into the series and made the third and final T20 as a virtual final. South Africa won the toss and chose to field in the final game played at the Sophia Gardens in Cardiff.

Jos Buttler had come out to do the toss much to everyone’s surprise. It was later revealed that regular captain Eoin Morgan had rested himself for this game. This left everyone puzzled as it is a deciding game for the series and England would have been better off with their captain playing this crucial game. Morgan wanted to give Dawid Malan an international debut as the team’s agenda for this series is to blood in some newcomers.

Vaughan baffled

Former England skipper Michael Vaughan found the move very befuddling. The Ashes-winning skipper is very active on Twitter opinionating on various cricketing activities happening across the globe. He, again, took to Twitter to express his disappointment on Morgan’s voluntary exclusion. He wrote: “1-1 Series decider and the England Skipper is resting!”

Morgan’s move paid rich dividends as Malan went on to register a whirlwind 44-ball 78 on England debut. Batting at No. 3, the left-hander struck 12 fours and two sixes during his stay at the crease which helped England post 181 for 8 in their allotted 20 overs. The target will be a huge one to chase for the Proteas, who haven’t tasted a series win yet during their England tour which kick started in May when they played a 3-match ODI series.

Author’s take

Clearly, T20 is an important format of the game these days and Morgan should have played this game at the expense of someone else. It is understandable that the focus of T20s is to introduce new faces but the skipper shouldn’t be sidelined for that. Cricket fans too were bamboozled by this move as they replied to Vaughan’s tweet.