World Cup 2019: Eoin Morgan has a cheeky reply to Kevin Pietersen’s ‘scared of Starc’ jibe

England find themselves in a huge hole after their defeat to Australia at the Lord’s Cricket Ground in London, they now have to win their remaining two matches and then hope that other teams lose a few to help them get into the semi-finals. Australia beat the hosts by 64 runs and from being favourites to winning the tournament, England are now left with questions and more questions to answer.

Eoin Morgan, who hit a record 17 sixes in an ODI inning against Afghanistan during his innings of 148, managed a single digit score versus their archrivals. It was a total failure of batting which has been called one-dimensional by many former cricketers and experts as they have lost twice chasing decent scores. Former captain Kevin Pietersen is known for making claims on his Twitter account and had taken a subtle dig at skipper also, to which Morgan replied in a very cheeky way.

Morgan makes a subtle dig at Kevin Pietersen’s jibe that he was scared of Starc

Pietersen never really managed to get the love of England fans or his teammate’s thanks to his charisma and diva-like personality. Despite being one of the most prolific run scorers for the team, his ouster was something that he wouldn’t want to remember and his digs at former skipper Andrew Strauss and ECB management was well documented in his autobiography.

KP took a jibe at Morgan claiming that the southpaw is scared of Australian fast bowler Mitchell Starc, as England’s knockout stages’ chances are hanging by the thread. Incidentally, Morgan fell to Starc in the match for just 4 runs and the left-arm pacer ended up taking four wickets which included the likes of Joe Root and Ben Stokes.

Morgan during the post-match conference was reminded of Pietersen’s jibe by a journo and Morgan replied in kind saying, “’Really, Excellent’. Pietersen had earlier predicted and English win by five wickets, well that did not happen so KP too seemed upset.”

Also read – World Cup 2019: England struggling with fitness issues to key players ahead of India game

Here is a video of Morgan’s reply:

Reporter: Kevin Pietersen took to twitter and said he thought you looked scared of the ball and were backing away from Mitchell Starc.

Eoin Morgan: Really, excellent.#ENGvAUS #CWC19 pic.twitter.com/4yFQpPZuCm

— Saj Sadiq (@Saj_PakPassion) June 25, 2019

England now face New Zealand and India in their next two matches and need to beat the two teams that are undefeated in the tournament so far. However, they haven’t beaten them in World Cup cricket since 1983 and 1987 respectively.