Eoin Morgan is letting his country down
Eoin Morgan
Eoin Morgan will take the biggest gamble of his career and jeopardise his international future when he tells England he will not go to Bangladesh. There was no sign of any late change of heart by this singular man on Friday, who seems certain to spend his 30th birthday at Loughborough on Saturday confirming to Andrew Strauss that England’s one-day squad must tour without their captain. It is a huge call by Morgan, who also met Strauss on Friday. He knows he is in a minority — probably of two — not to take the advice of England’s highly regarded security expert Reg Dickason that it is safe for the squad to go to Bangladesh.
Only Alex Hales, it seems, will join Morgan in pulling out of England’s three one-day internationals and two Tests next month because of concerns for their safety in a country where 20 died in a terrorist attack in July. Everyone else, including coaches Trevor Bayliss and Paul Farbrace, who survived an attack on the Sri Lanka team in Lahore in 2009 and Test captain Alastair Cook, who is soon to have his second child, look sure to travel. The risks are not so great for Hales, as he looks certain to be dropped from the Test squad and can afford to miss three 50-over games knowing that, after four one-day hundreds this year, his place is hardly under threat.
For Morgan, though, it is very different both because of his responsibilities to the team as their captain and his own indifferent form that saw him go 21 international innings without a 50, before two half-centuries against Pakistan.That faith has been justified by England’s spectacular resurgence, with Morgan’s captaincy to the fore, but no longer can he be certain of leading his team in next year’s Champions Trophy and the World Cup in 2019. How can he be when his young colleagues badly needed their captain to show the right example at a time of such uncertainty and lead from the front by joining them on the plane to Dhaka on September 29?
Bayliss is said to be relaxed about Morgan’s stance and expects him to be in charge for the limited-overs matches in India in January, but Strauss has warned his captain that his place cannot be guaranteed. For now, vice-captain Jos Buttler, who has taken over Morgan’s mantle as England’s most gifted one-day batsman, looks certain to be asked to lead the one-day team in Bangladesh and quite possibly beyond. Cook, meanwhile, is said to have made plans to ensure he will be in Chittagong in time for the first Test on October 20, even though his wife Alice is expecting their second child at the start of next month.
There was a time when Morgan was the most innovative batsman in English cricket, but not now. Not when there are incredible talents such as Buttler, Joe Root, Ben Stokes, Jason Roy and Hales around. There are plenty more where they came from, too, and the likes of Sam Billings, Jonny Bairstow and Ben Duckett look better long-term prospects for 2019 than a captain already past his best. All three are likely to benefit from the absence of Morgan and Hales by being named in England’s one-day squad on Friday and, if they score lots of runs in Dhaka and Chittagong, the pressure on Morgan’s place will increase.
Not that Morgan, who still took part in England’s initial one-day selection discussions on Thursday, is likely to lose any sleep over the magnitude of his decision nor the opprobrium that is likely to be thrown in his direction. He is the most detached and unemotional of characters, an Irish captain of England who refuses to sing the national anthem ahead of matches at major tournaments. Not even his Middlesex team-mates claim to be close to Morgan, who was not afraid to turn his back on his native Ireland to fulfil his ambitions with his adopted country. He has made big decisions since, notably when putting the Indian Premier League before his Test ambitions and making it clear he was fully behind England’s call to shun a man he was once relatively close to in Kevin Pietersen.
But this is the biggest and most controversial call yet. It is one that may come back to haunt him, not only if he loses his place but also if it compromises his future involvement in the IPL if there are further security scares in India. After all, he cites his presence in Bangalore when a bomb went off ahead of an IPL game as one of the reasons for his reluctance to tour now. And it is one that England are entitled to feel hugely disappointed about. For, unless Morgan does an abrupt and unexpected about-turn, he will be letting down the adopted country that made him their one-day captain.
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Eoin Morgan looks set to pull out of England’s tour to Bangladesh due to security fears