Morgan tips young Lions to give India tougher test in Mumbai
STAND-IN skipper Eoin Morgan has tipped England’s inexperienced Twenty20 side to bounce back from yesterday’s defeat in tomorrow’s second international against India.
The tourists, missing regular captain Stuart Broad through injury, plus Graeme Swann, Kevin Pietersen and Steven Finn – all rested following their Test series exploits – were beaten by five wickets in Pune.
But Middlesex batsman Morgan believes his team will be stronger for yesterday’s comprehensive defeat, which was England’s first ever T20 international loss in India.
“We are a tremendously young side and the guys showed a lot of promise,” said the 26-year-old.
“We will have to pick ourselves up from here and hopefully produce a win on Saturday.
“Alex Hales played tremendously, along with Luke Wright. But in that middle period we failed to kick on. The positivity wasn’t there in our batting and we were 15 or 20 runs short.”
Morgan lost the toss and England were asked to bat first. They made a storming start though, as opening batsman Hales smashed two boundaries in the first over.
By the time Hales was dismissed for 56, off the bowling of Yuvraj Singh, the tourists were well placed on 99-3.
Luke Wright chipped in with 34 and Jos Buttler added 33 runs, but England finished their allotted overs on 157-6, with Singh taking three wickets.
India looked to be making light work of their target, until Tim Bresnan struck twice in the fifth over to remove the opening pair.
But Singh, England’s tormentor with the ball, top-scored with 38 runs to steer his side home with 13 balls to be had.
“We lacked a little bit of discipline in our bowling,” Morgan added.
“But we were always up against it with that score.”