Eoin Morgan enjoyed one of the greatest of all Irish sporting careers. The fact that he played for England shouldn’t prevent us from celebrating it.
he 35-year-old Dubliner, who announced his international retirement last week, was the architect of one of the most radical transformations in modern sport. As captain he turned an England one-day side which had been a byword for dullness and underachievement into the most exhilarating team in the game.
Their 2019 World Cup final win, the first in England’s history, was his crowning glory and was fittingly achieved in perhaps the most thrilling game the competition had ever seen.
Few would have expected such a climax when Morgan was appointed captain on December 14, 2014, after a series trouncing by Sri Lanka spelt the end for Alistair Cook. The World Cup arrived just two months later and the Irishman endured a baptism of fire as England failed to even make the last eight after a humiliating defeat by Bangladesh.
Ranked eighth in the world, England hadn’t reached a World Cup final since 1992 and played the game with a conspicuous lack of flair. What could one man do to change such a dismal scenario?
Everything. He could do everything. For starters, he insisted that England throw caution to the wind and try to make runs at a rate never seen before. Before Morgan arrived England had exceeded 300 runs 31 times in 633 one-day internationals.
Under his captaincy they did it 53 times out of 131 as the erstwhile dullards became the great swashbucklers of the one-day game. Just three months after the World Cup disaster a new-look England gave notice of their change of direction when scoring a best ever 408/9 against New Zealand at Edgbaston.
Morgan’s England expanded the boundaries of what was possible in one-day cricket. It was a high-risk strategy, but their captain never lost faith and it paid off big time. In the seven and a half years before he took over England had won 79 games and lost 78. In the seven and a half years which followed their record was 82-37.
In 2018 there was an almost unbelievable world record 481/6 against the world champions, Australia, at Trent Bridge which was part of a five-game series whitewash. By the time the 2019 World Cup arrived England, playing on home soil, were hotly fancied to finally win it.
So it transpired, but only after the most dramatic of finals with New Zealand ended tied and went to a deciding super over. When that too was tied, England were victorious by virtue of having hit more boundaries. It was perhaps the ultimate vindication of Morgan’s bold batting policy and saw him join Bobby Moore and Martin Johnson in the English sporting pantheon.
He had played an even more central part in the victory than those illustrious predecessors. The captain’s role is perhaps more important in cricket than any other sport. The best are de facto player-managers, given free rein in deciding on the batting, bowling and fielding approaches of their team.
That most revered of all English captains, Mike Brearley, was a mediocre Test batsman whose leadership skills and tactical nous made him invaluable. Morgan was the one-day Brearley, but with the distinction of also being an outstanding batsman.
The aggressive style Morgan persuaded his players to embrace resembled the one he’d always adopted personally. He scored with great rapidity and ruthlessness, contributing a record-breaking half-century in 21 balls to the 481 against Australia, smashing a world record 17 sixes against Afghanistan in the 2019 World Cup and hitting an unrivalled 202 sixes for England.
His trademark shots were sweeps and reverse sweeps, played later than anyone else dared. His style, like that of his team, proved massively influential. Morgan changed the way not just England but the world played one-day cricket. He holds the record for victories as a T20 international captain and made two Test centuries in a three-year stint for England. But it is the 50-over game with which his name will be indelibly associated.
It all began in Dublin. With the cricket club in his native village of Rush, where his father Jody was third team captain, and with the Catholic University School in Leeson Street (alma mater of Ronnie Delany and Dean Rock) where in 2004 he made 137 as they beat High School in the Leinster Schools Senior Cup final.
Two years later he made 99 against Scotland on his one-day debut for Ireland and finished second top scorer at the under 19 World Cup in Bangladesh. The following year he became the first Irish international to make a first class double century when scoring 207 against the United Arab Emirates. He was also part of the Irish side which scored the historic World Cup 2007 victory over Pakistan, though the 20-year old had a disappointing tournament.
There was always a suspicion Ireland wouldn’t be big enough to hold him. “If I feel I am good enough to make the England side I will declare for them,” he admitted at the age of 17. Given our sensitivities in these matters it would be easy to portray his move to England in 2009 as an act of treachery.
The truth is that, with Test status for Ireland still eight years away, it made perfect sense for Morgan, whose mother Olivia is English, to maximise his potential. Fellow Irish internationals Ed Joyce and Boyd Rankin did the same.
It would be a peculiarly mean-spirited vision of Irish sporting identity which refused to celebrate Morgan’s achievements while hymning those of rugby and soccer players with much more tenuous connections to this country.
There have been times when the skipper showed himself to be not entirely like other England players, noting for example that, “I played hurling when I was at school and the actual grip for hurling is the same as for the reverse sweep. Hurling is a fantastic sport and I still love watching it.”
And when the appalling Piers Morgan tried to start a controversy about the fact that the England captain didn’t sing God Save The Queen before matches, Morgan just observed that he didn’t sing national anthems and left it at that.
It didn’t affect his popularity one whit. The accolades were pouring in cross-channel with former England skipper Nasser Hussain declaring him “England’s greatest ever white ball captain.”
They love him over there. We should too.
Sympathy for Raducanu under weight of absurd expectations
Two players at opposite ends of their careers met similar fates in the opening days of Wimbledon despite passionate support from the Centre Court record crowds.
Serena Williams’ first-round loss to France’s Harmony Tan seemed definitive proof that the great American will never win the final Grand Slam needed to draw level with Margaret Court.
Emma Raducanu’s victory in last year’s US Open saw her anointed as a possible heiress to Williams, but the 19-year-old has struggled since due to injuries and a certain fragility in the face of sky-high English expectations.
Listening to a BBC commentator scream “She’s done it,” after Raducanu merely earned a break point in her second-round match against France’s Caroline Garcia, it was hard not to sympathise with the youngster.
Garcia went on to win in straight sets. The fact that nine women players who’ve won Grand Slam titles since 2010 haven’t won a second one should have tempered the absurd expectations heaped on Raducanu’s shoulders following her triumph last year.
No shortage of quality sides chasing Euro title
The most exciting thing about the Uefa women’s championship which kicks off on Wednesday is that there’s very little between the top half dozen contenders.
Bookies’ favourites Spain, hosts England, reigning champions Holland, Olympic runners-up Sweden, eight-time winners Germany and a powerful French side are all capable of winning it. Northern Ireland’s presence is a minor miracle. The 48th-ranked team in the world are an anomalous presence in a tournament where the next weakest is Portugal, rated 29th.
Fans of the underdog will wish Kenny Shiels’ side the best of luck. They’ll need it as their group includes not just England but possible dark horses Norway, who they face on Thursday.
Norway have been boosted by the recent return of Ada Hegerberg. The former World Player of the Year and all-time Champions League leading goalscorer quit the national side in 2017 as a protest against the way they were treated by the Norwegian football authorities. She scored a hat-trick against Kosovo in her first game back.
It’s a pity the Republic of Ireland won’t be there but Vera Pauw will be keeping a keen eye on Finland, our main World Cup qualifying group rivals. A great tournament lies ahead.
