England

Why Eoin Morgan should definitely stand in the way of a World Cup win

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We’re gravely worried about Eoin Morgan. We’re worried he’s lost sight of the basics.

Speaking to Sky Sports earlier this week, Morgan suggested that he would consider dropping himself if he couldn’t regain batting form. He did however also make a point of saying that he’d come out of every spell of poor form he’d ever had, which kind of makes it sound like he can’t actually envisage circumstances where this whole ‘dropping yourself’ thing would actually apply.

That wasn’t the worrying bit though. The worrying bit was when he was talking about this possibility and said: “I wouldn’t stand in the way of a team winning the World Cup.”

We’d seen two versions of this quote, with a key distinction between them, so we thought we’d better investigate. The other version of the quote has him saying, “I wouldn’t stand in the way of the team winning the World Cup.”

That version’s okay. That version makes sense. If that were what Morgan had said, we could safely infer that “the team” was England, in which case, no, you definitely should not stand in the way of a World Cup win. That is very definitely not your job as England captain.

Unfortunately, we listened to the interview and he actually said “a team” which is obviously a good deal more concerning – because which team was he talking about?

If you are England captain, the England cricket team is not “a team” it is “the team” or even “my team”. If you are England cricket captain, “a team” definitely refers to one of the other teams in the tournament. This means that you should stand in the way of “a team” winning the World Cup because that is what you are supposed to do.

It is impossible for us to deduce which team Morgan is referring to and we certainly won’t be pointing out that it’s probably Ireland because that is exactly the kind of thing that mental right-wing newspapers do on the rare occasions England’s greatest-ever limited overs captain isn’t winning world tournaments or crafting one of the best white ball teams the game has seen.

In summary, it would be best if Eoin Morgan chose to stand in the way of other teams’ World Cup wins. If he for some reason sees fit to not do so in one particular case, we’d prefer to not know about it so that we don’t accidentally and unwillingly find ourself fractionally overlapping with some frothing columnist with dementedly specific ideas about what an England cricket captain should be.

(It’s also possible Morgan said, “er… team,” but really that’s no less fishy. That just sounds evasive.)

Please sign up for our email, unless you’re hoping for some sort of campaign against Eoin Morgan, because let us tell you right now, you absolutely will not be getting that.

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19 comments

  1. I don’t get the paragraph, ‘ It is impossible for us. . . mental right-wing newspapers do on the rare occasions. . . game has seen.’ Expand please.

    1. It just struck us that if there were a team (other than England) Morgan wouldn’t mind seeing win the World Cup, surely it would be Ireland. And then we thought that saying that was a bit too much like when there was that big weird “he’s not one of us!” campaign about him not singing the national anthem.

      1. Top effort to keep it going. I ran aground some time ago on horse dentist. I only recently discovered his actual songs about cricket.

  3. If you think you might have heard him say, “…er…team…”, rather than, “…a…team…”, is it possible that he instead said, “…our team…”, which would also be OK.

    Your article might be a bit of a storm in the/a/our/…er… teacup, KC.

  4. All this hurly burly and to-do over the indefinite article, as the duchess said to the postilion.

  5. Little and Young opening the bowling for Ireland.

    Doesn’t seem very fair. They should find some grown-ups to play.

    Where’s Chris Old when you need him?

    Or Javed Mian-dad?

    Thanks very much.

    1. @Sam – Ireland had a player called John Elder in the 70s and 80s. He might ‘ave been ‘andy. Otherwise you’d have to haul Gladstone Small out of retirement and get D’Arcy Short to renounce his Aussie heritage.

  6. Warwickshire stealing Lancashire’s Test matches now, it’s gone too far – Boo Bears, I say

    1. Pleased to see Manchester has struck back by taking a South Africa Test in return though. Now to work out whether to go to the Leeds AND Manchester Tests…

      1. An equitable solution for most…

        …but not those of us who have booked our seats and accommodation for Edgbaston late August! Back to the drawing board.

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