Returning hero: Eoin Morgan will be back in action for Middlesex in tomorrow’s Blast match against Gloucestershire
(Picture: Getty Images)Eoin Morgan joined Middlesex as a wide-eyed teenager from Dublin in June 2003, the same month the ECB launched a professional T20 competition for the first time.
In micro and macro terms respectively, both have changed the English game irrevocably across the 20 summers since. But as Morgan, who is 36 this summer, embarks on another T20 campaign with Middlesex tomorrow, it is worth wondering if this will be his last.
With only a white-ball deal at Middlesex, a quad injury, and having gone unsold in the IPL auction, Morgan has gone four months without a game. He calls this “reality time” with his young family.
After his time out, he is speaking with genuine enthusiasm for the game. There is an excitement about England’s new era, for the Test team under his great friend Brendon McCullum, and in white-ball cricket with Matthew Mott, who he has admired “from afar” for many years and "cannot wait” to work with.
And although it is some time since Morgan, for all his white-ball evangelism, has been much of a fan of the Blast (which he finds unwieldier than many of the tournaments he has called home, not least the Hundred), there is excitement for that too. His expectations for Middlesex are tempered, but he hopes the confidence built topping Division Two of the County Championship will prove contagious.
“You don’t have to be a genius to see we’ve struggled with our T20 cricket for some time now,” he says. “The focus has generally been on four-day cricket.
“We have obviously had a fantastic start to our Championship season so hopefully ride a bit of the confidence from there, and bring some new energy with overseas players, myself and some young guys.”
He picks out Joe Cracknell and Blake Cullen as young players he is especially enthused by.
Morgan is no longer Middlesex’s T20 captain – the prolific Stevie Eskinazi takes over – and will see his own involvement curtailed early in the season. He will not play back-to-back matches (Middlesex twice have three in four days early in the season) in the hope of avoiding injury, having learnt from the T20 tour to Barbados in January. So he will play at Gloucestershire at Radlett tomorrow, but not at Hampshire on Friday.
“There’s nothing specific [injury wise],” he says. “I’m just old, I think! It takes longer to recover. I did play the two back-to-back games in Barbados, then I got injured. You shouldn’t get injured warming up as a batsman, but I pulled my quad warming up, which means my body just didn’t recover at all.”
Morgan is looking to conserve his body for five busy months with England, from the Netherlands ODIs through to the T20 World Cup in November, via home series against India and South Africa, and series in Pakistan and Australia, not to mention the Hundred.
Morgan’s durability for England’s schedule is a concern. They play back-to-back T20 matches this summer, the seven T20s in Pakistan will be squeezed into less than a fortnight, while two ODIs in three days (as they have in the Netherlands) would seem likely to trouble him now, too.
“There are back-to-back games in the international fixtures, so just getting to them and seeing how I am, will be a decision made then,” he says. "There is more solace looking towards the World Cup, because there aren’t fixtures within a few days. Everywhere else we play, they see time and just want to have games.”
Morgan is not looking beyond the World Cup (England’s ODI defence in 2023 looks a long way off) and accepts he has to take things “week by week”, with “contingency plans” – Jos Buttler or perhaps Moeen Ali as captain – in place. He knows too that he needs to be worth his place in the side through runs, which have been thin of late.
“Particularly with getting injured recently on the West Indies tour, I need to be as honest as I can with Keysy [England managing director Rob Key] and everyone else to make sure we are in the right position come Australia in October,” he said. “I have always said that if I am on the way to a ground and feel done or cooked, or lacking the drive for it as a leader, I will communicate ASAP to Rob.
“But I think it’s important that I play it week by week to start with, and aim for the T20 World Cup.”
With so much focus on reviving England’s ailing Test side, Morgan accepts that he is unlikely to have his best team until the World Cup, giving the summer an experimental feel, and rails against a perception that white-ball cricket has taken great precedent in recent years.
“I don’t expect to see many of the multi-format guys until October,” he says. “I would rather them be consumed by Test cricket for the summer, and have lots of rest. We don’t want them cooking themselves in August and still having three months of cricket to play.
“This has been the case for the last few years. The understanding around that [not having the best players at all times][ for the new coach is important. It’s fine saying it in theory but obviously when you are being held accountable mainly for results and a little bit of development, and are handed a team that is maybe third string, it is a more difficult pill to swallow. Baz [McCullum] and Motty's relationship will be very important.” Split coaching, though, he says is “necessary”.
“Covering both to the best of your ability as a coach or manager is pretty impossible, with the demands of the schedule,” he says.
Morgan says he can “relate” to the state of the Test team, having helped lift the white-ball setup in 2015, and believes McCullum is the perfect man for the job. It is worth noting the way he uses the word “manager”, like football, in place of coach.
There’s part of me wishing I was a young aspiring Test cricketer coming through with Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum in charge
“I have worked with Baz as a manager in the last couple of years in the IPL. It’s unbelievably exciting for Test cricket, not just English cricket. There is a bigger side to this. For Test cricket to continue to be appealing, it needs a strong England. The start of that is making a statement of intent, with a very strong appointment of one of the best coaches, or managers in the world.
“There’s part of me wishing I was a young aspiring Test cricketer coming through with Ben [Stokes] and Baz being in charge.”
It is like 2003 all over again.
