England’s one-day captaincy has often seemed a burden for Alastair Cook. Eoin Morgan, bereft of form, will seek to use it as a catalyst for change
Alan Gardner in Colombo05-Dec-20141:06
Chance for Morgan to show his worth
The England one-day captaincy does not seem like the kind of job a person would take up if they wanted to rediscover a carefree sense of enjoyment in the workplace, but that is exactly what Eoin Morgan will seek to achieve as he deputises for Alastair Cook in Colombo on Sunday.England hope tossing him the metaphorical armband will act as a buoyancy aid. Morgan holds a similar view, perhaps knowing that he averages 73.00 as captain, and he remains confident in his own abilities. Unlike Cook, he is still able to smile, too.Cook spent two years straining sinews as a limited-overs opener to go some way to silencing complaints that he was not up to the job. Now, with the World Cup looming, he more often than not sits with a grave face trying to explain how both he and England can get better; that all is not lost.It seems apparent that Cook is going nowhere. He is determined to carry on, despite a sapping run of personal form and the return of some increasingly vocal detractors, which says much about his strength of will, as well as hinting at underlying masochistic tendencies.Eoin Morgan wants to rediscover the calculating edge that once defined him•Getty ImagesBut he is taking an enforced sabbatical in Colombo after picking up a one-game ban for England’s slow over rate in Hambantota, a match they won to pull back to 2-1 down in the series. Instead, the man striding out with a purposeful look at the coin toss will be Morgan, his regular deputy in recent times, a batsman seeking to use the captaincy as a source of inspiration rather than an addition to his burden.If captain Cook has barely had any respite as he attempts to navigate his way to Australia and New Zealand, captain Morgan has had an equally rum time of it. He has not reached 50 since January and in the previous match was dropped down to No. 6, where he has not batted since 2011.His game lacks certainty and the calculating edge that once defined it and, perhaps more infuriatingly, his recent dismissals do not hint at a pattern – in Sri Lanka, he has played on to a spinner, pushed tamely to cover and been caught on the hook.Since he exchanged an Ireland shirt for an England one, Morgan has identified himself as a batsman of instinctive genius at the highest level. His early innings included a scorching 85 not out in only his second T20 international, as well as 67 off 34 balls to help take England to an unexpected semi-final at the 2009 Champions Trophy, at the expense of hosts South Africa. He is one of the few England players who IPL teams have deigned to court. With six ODI hundreds, he has more than any other member of the touring party.”The Iceman” is now enduring a long winter, although he had a similar run in 2012-13 before stringing together two hundreds and four fifties in eight innings. Those were his last significant international scores, barring a couple of typically jaunty T20 knocks,
Cook and Morgan are not quite Holmes and Moriarty tumbling over the Reichenbach Falls together – they are allies after all – but they are currently locked together in a downward spiral
“I’ve always enjoyed captaining the side,” he said. “It gives you another string to your bow. The other side of it is it takes a bit of tension away from your batting thoughts throughout the game, so maybe it’ll contribute to me getting some runs.”Ironically, for all the justly levelled criticism, Cook and Morgan remain England’s two highest-ranked batsmen, at 25th and 27th respectively. That says as much about the team’s form since reaching the final of last year’s Champions Trophy as anything, even accounting for the fact that some of the most impressive recent contributions have come from those new to the set-up and therefore only just entering the ICC rankings.They are not quite Holmes and Moriarty tumbling over the Reichenbach Falls together – Cook and Morgan are allies after all – but they are currently locked in a downward spiral. If the captaincy has begun to drag like a lead weight at Cook, it may be the jetpack Morgan has been after. That could be the cause another kind of discomfort, for Morgan was the man most had tipped as the best qualified to succeed, or possibly replace, Cook.Morgan is too single-minded to worry about that scenario and Cook would certainly welcome his star batsman rediscovering his touch. Interestingly, Morgan referred to becoming “too involved in the team side of things” during the early part of the summer, due to the changes in management, as a reason for neglecting his own game. He will have watched Cook attempting to balance those demands and may conclude that the status quo is fine as it is.”I have to play an aggressive type of game. It’s the way I’ve played since I was a kid and it works for me, so there’s no use in going into my shell or not playing any of my shots. But if I chew up balls in the middle, so be it. The responsibility is on me to play my own game, and it’s a great responsibility to have because there are no ties or obligations or people telling you what to do.”For a while now, England have taken the Swiftian (Taylor not Jonathan) advice of shaking off the haters. Whether it is Cook’s captaincy or Morgan’s style of batsmanship, they change only what they see fit and try to hold their course. When Cook returns from his one-match ban, England will hope that they do not have two captains under fire.