Eoin Morgan all praise for team's performance at World T20

New Delhi: As the floodlights around the Kotla died around him on Saturday evening, Eoin Morgan was a happy man. He had not had a great game personally as England won by 10 runs against defending champions Sri Lanka, but the fact that they were through to the semi-finals of the ICC World Twenty20, had him smiling.

“I think in three of our wins we’ve had to show an immense amount of character,” Morgan pointed out after the game. “Having to chase down 230 against South Africa, then against Afghanistan we put our backs against the wall early and had to fight quite hard.

“And today it was completely different in the way we were way ahead of the game. It asked a completely different question of us.” England, winners of the 2012 edition in the West Indies, are two victories away from being the first two-time champions of this tournament, but Morgan preferred to stay in the moment. “With the bat we adapted a lot better than we did against Afghanistan,” he said.

“We showed we are capable of playing both smart cricket and aggressive cricket. I think we’ve struggled to do that in the last six to eight months or so and it’s an area we are constantly trying to improve.” Morgan had good words for opposite number Angelo Mathews, who gave England a scare even as his team collapsed around him. “Angelo put himself in the best position possible to do that (push for a win) towards the back end and, in order to do that, he did what he had to do against the spinners.

“Between now and the semifinal we have to come up with some answers about how we get batsmen like that out. They were in the game right until the end so Ben Stokes’ last over was as crucial as it gets.

“Angelo was set and, like with Jos (Buttler) in our innings, when you are bowling to a batsman who is in, it is so significant in a T20 game. But Stokesy has done it before. The character they showed today was brilliant,” he added.