Morgan eager to turn around unimpressive form

England captain aims for match-winning performance against New Zealand.

WELLINGTON: England captain Eoin Morgan said on Wednesday that he was aiming to end a run of poor form with a match-winning performance when his side face New Zealand in their next World Cup game.

The 28-year-old left hander is battling to overcome a wretched run of form after getting out for 0, 2, 0, 0, 0 in his last five innings — a desperate sequence for a top-order batsman.

Now England will hope Morgan fires in their second Pool A game against the Black Caps in Wellington on Friday, after he failed to score in the 111-run defeat by Australia in Melbourne.

Morgan, asked for the reason behind his recent meagre return, told reporters on Wednesday, “I’d love you to explain it to me because I don’t understand it. Personally I try and keep it as simple as possible. You don’t look any further than what is in front of you and I’ve done that and it hasn’t worked.

“But I believe it will work and when it does, hopefully, I can cash in on it and hopefully make it either a match-winning performance or build on somebody else’s performance.”

Former Ireland international Morgan attributed his personal slump to a combination of bad luck and bad form.

“A bit of both,” he said. “I’ve certainly done the same things that I’ve been doing since the start of the tour and I started the tour with a hundred.

“That’s only five games ago. It’s not that long ago,” added Morgan of his 121 against Australia at Sydney in the tri-series which preceded the World Cup.

Morgan was parachuted into the England one-day captaincy on a full-time basis when Test skipper Alastair Cook was axed from the World Cup squad following a run of low scores in white-ball cricket.

But Morgan was adamant captaincy wasn’t having a negative impact on his batting.

“Having done the captaincy in spurts before has helped my position at the moment,” he said. “It has allowed me to continue what I’m doing and balance both sides of it.” 

Published in The Express Tribune, February 19^th,  2015.

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