Eoin Morgan – England’s Irish Champion

It’s one of sport’s more ironic stories that when England finally ended more than 4 decades of failure in the 50-over game, the two key players were men born in Ireland and New Zealand. It’s unthinkable to even imagine that England would have won the trophy without the calm but aggressive captaincy of Eoin Morgan and Ben Stokes’s thrilling all-round skills.

Morgan was marked for stardom from the time he top-scored for Ireland at the Under-19 World Cup in 2004, but he never made any secret of the fact that his ultimate aim was to play for England Team – his mother is English. At the time, Ireland was an associate nation, with opportunities to play few and far between. He had a miserable tournament with Ireland at the 2007 World Cup, though the team did brilliantly, and he switched his loyalty to England not long after.

Less than a year after his debut for his adopted country, he was out in the middle as England won the World T20 final against Australia in 2010. Few could have imagined then that he would also be the only one from that squad who would be part of a World Cup win on home soil nearly a decade later.

By then, he had nearly half a decade of experience as a leader. Appointed captain before the 2015 World Cup disaster, Morgan benefited greatly from being paired with Trevor Bayliss as a coach. All the old plans that England had used in limited-overs cricket were shredded as captain and coach became fully committed to a relentless attacking style. With batters like Jason Roy, Jonny Bairstow and Jos Buttler to the fore and the flair provided by Stokes, batting records were smashed as England quickly rose to the top of the rankings.

They would have won the World T20 in 2016 but for Carlos Bratwaite’s incredible last-over six-hitting. Nevertheless, Morgan carried on with the same attacking mindset. At the World Cup itself, they overcame a significant mid-tournament slump to beat India, New Zealand and Australia in consecutive matches to reach the final. There they couldn’t beat New Zealand, even in a Super Over, but Morgan was the captain holding the cup aloft because his team had hit more boundaries.

Such success has proved elusive for him in the Indian T20 League. Early stints with Bangalore and Kolkata didn’t do much to highlight his talent, and he was equally disappointing with Hyderabad and Punjab. But when Brendon McCullum persuaded him to take on the Kolkata team captaincy midway through the 2020 tournament, something seemed to click. Though his own batting form slumped after an excellent 2020, Morgan was able to lead the side into the play-offs in 2021, winning 5 of their last 7 group games. Only time will tell if his golden touch at the international level will reveal itself in the Indian T20 League too.