Eoin Morgan, the man who transformed English cricket, set to retire

England's white-ball captain, Eoin Morgan might announce his retirement soon, The Guardian reported on Sunday. The newspaper learnt from its sources that Morgan has been mulling over his retirement for quite some time because of his performance and fitness issues.

Speaking to Sky Sports ahead of the Netherlands series, Morgan said: “If I don’t think I am good enough or I don’t feel I am contributing to the team, then I will finish.”
In his last ODIs against Netherlands, he was out on duck consecutively. 

The Ireland-born player has had quite a lean patch in the recent times as he failed to produce good knocks for the team. In the last 28 international innings, Morgan could score only two fifties. 

In 2021, Morgan averaged 16.67 in T2OIs. In 2022 also he has averaged just 15 in the two games he has played.

His poor form was also one of the reasons why he was dropped from Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) team in IPL 2022 despite him leading the team to the finals in 2021 edition. 

A CAPTAIN WHO TRANSFORMED THE ENGLAND TEAM

Eoin Morgan led England to winning the ODI World Cup in 2019 ending their drought. Morgan, who took over the reins of the ODI and T20I team in 2015, transformed the English team like never before.

The team under his captaincy the team played with aggression. Under Morgan, the batters could express themselves without fearing the consequences if they failed. 

As a captain, Morgan backed his players. For example, in the third game of their ODI series against New Zealand in 2015, Morgan had backed his team despite the team getting all out at 302 in 45.2 overs with 28 balls to spare. 

Morgan had then said, “We got 300 on the board – we were aiming for a lot more, which is the important part. As long as we set the standards high, we’ll win more games than we lose playing in this manner,' The Guardian reported. 

Since 2015, Morgan as captain has average of 43 and had a strike rate of 95 in ODIs. Even when he was not scoring runs, Morgan justified his place in team as the captain.  In fact, he has hit more sixes in international cricket for England than any other player. 

A DYNAMIC CAREER

Morgan had moved to the England team in 2009 after playing a couple of games for Ireland. He was an explosive batter from the beginning. 

If Morgan decides to end his career, he would retire with 7,000 runs in 225 ODIs with 13 centuries. In T2OIs, he has scored 2,458 runs. He has played 16 Test matches for the team between 2010 and 2012.

In the absence of Morgan, Jos Butler is expected to take over the captaincy in limited-over cricket.