We're up for it, says Eoin Morgan
“The guys that we've selected have done outstandingly well and shown a great amount of attitude in learning.â€
New Delhi: Eoin Morgan wore a quietly confident look on the eve of their ICC World Twenty20 semifinal against an unbeaten New Zealand side at the Kotla on Wednesday. The England captain knows his team have overcome some tough situations to get here, and feels there is something in common between this unit and the one that won the tournament in 2010 in the West Indies. “I can’t quite believe where we are with our one-day cricket and Twenty20 cricket,” Morgan said on Tuesday. “The guys that we’ve selected have done outstandingly well and shown a great amount of attitude in learning.”
“Quite a few (similarities) actually. The main one would be how relaxed everybody is around the group. It’s all about having fun and enjoying what you are doing. “If you don’t have the drive to always want to improve, to win a game of cricket, you stand still for a long time, this side has showed strength which is similar to that 2010 group.”
Morgan was batting alongside then captain Paul Collingwood who scored the winning runs to seal England’s seven-wicket final win over Australia in Barbados. And he in convinced they have overcome the disappointment of 2014 in Bangladesh.
He also knows there is a job to be done, which will not be easy. “We have a top game tomorrow against a strong New Zealand side who probably have played the best cricket of the tournament so far in the group stages. So we are going to have a very strong game to beat them,” he said.
“We haven’t had to repeat the same thing twice. We showed different sides to everyone’s personality, what they have got as opposed to just what they do on a day-to-day basis. That shows the group as a whole can be very powerful,” the left-hander said.
“I feel excited. I don’t feel like I’m close to a final. I’m not going too far ahead of myself. Certainly my experience in the knock-out stages of a tournament is that you’ve done the hard work and it’s almost now you earn a licence to go out and express yourself as much as you can. “So you’ve guys coming out very relaxed about performing on the big stage, I think that takes a lot of weight off the shoulders,” he added.