Why Eoin Morgan thinks beating India on home turf is not tough
Eoin Morgan, the captain of England team, draws inspiration from South Africa’s ODI series win in India in 2015 and feels his set of aggressive batsmen can hurt Virat Kohli’s men
After a successful World T20 last year – where they reached the final despite being short on experience, winning an ODI series in India is England’s final frontier.
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With the batting unit looking well-oiled, the three-match short series will be a great chance for England to register their first ODI series victory in India since 1984-85.
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Joe Root, Alex Hales, Jason Roy and vice-captain Jos Buttler are among the runs. Though skipper Eoin Morgan hasn’t been in the best of form off late, England’s batting stars have all scored over 1000 runs in one-dayers since the end of the 2015 World Cup.
Since their shocking exit from the group stage at the 2015 World Cup, Morgan’s England team has lost just two series (3-2 to both Australia and South Africa) and are unbeaten in the last three ODI series since February last year.
England’s batting reached its peak when they piled up a world record 444 for three against Pakistan at Trent Bridge last August.
Morgan credited the successful run to the explosive nature of his batsmen. “We like to play in our own way. The group of players we have are very outgoing, very expansive and very explosive and do what they say they’re going to do. They can stick to their natural game which is quite an aggressive game. Trying to be somebody else or trying to be a different team doesn’t work for us. We try to be ourselves and be comfortable within our skins and I think that has worked,” said Morgan.
Morgan draws hope from South Africa’s win over India here in 2015 and New Zealand running them close late last year. “The challenge of winning in India is huge but it is not impossible. It has happened recently. South Africa turned India over, New Zealand pushed them close. It’s nice to come to a country where there is hype and expectation not necessarily on us. One of the biggest challenges here is adapting to the conditions,” said Morgan.