He’s always looking to influence the game – bat, ball, or even in the field. That attitude in itself – a lot of guys with potential like that, when things aren’t going your way, go back into a corner. But that’s not Ben: Morgan © Getty Images
“We did it in our own way” – Eoin Morgan.
The England way of ‘attack, come what may’ is not for the weak hearted. The risks associated with batting purely on instinct and shedding the traditional approach are plenty. Morgan himself conceded that the England way can “look a little bit reckless at times and put us in some sticky situations”.
Morgan was in one such ‘sticky situation’ on Saturday (June 10) when England were reduced to 35 for 3 in their chase of 278. With rain stopping play for 42 minutes, Morgan had plenty of time to choose which way he wanted to go – the new England way, or the old one.
What happened after the break made it clear that England weren’t going back to the other side of the fence. It was an approach England have so carefully built over the last two years, and they were not going to change that, not with their place in the semifinals guaranteed anyway.
“We just talked about how we were going to go about it. It was important to get some sort of a partnership going and how we were going to negate Australia’s bowling,” explained Morgan after the game. “They bowled really well up front. They asked a lot of questions and then got the ball moving. We felt that, I suppose, the positive way was the best way. And we spoke about how we were going to go about it a little bit differently, but it managed to work. We did it in our own way.”
Ben Stokes and Morgan went on to add 159 off 157 balls from there, taking the game away from Australia with some relentless hitting. Stokes went on to make a century, but it was Morgan who set the tone with a couple of boundaries off Mitchell Starc immediately after the rain break.
Even at 6 for 2, when he walked in, Morgan had the same approach, dancing down the track to Josh Hazlewood. He nearly succumbed to the approach when Matthew Wade dropped him on 12, but the risks wouldn’t change Morgan’s way of tackling those situations.
A lot of people go to India as a spinner or a young spinner and don’t come back from it. But from where he(Rashid) was there to where he is now – a completely different bowler: Morgan © Getty Images
“I think so,” he said when asked if attack was the best option. “Personally, for me, you have to earn the right for guys to make mistakes with the ball. So I did what I do, and obviously, Ben’s very naturally aggressive and finds attacking quite easy.”
The key here is that England don’t consider it a ‘counter-attack’. They don’t do it to shift the momentum back to the opponent, or to put them off track.
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