Eoin Morgan, the England limited-overs captain, feels the hard-fought victories against Ireland and Pakistan serve as good match practice in lead-up to the ICC World Cup 2019.
England stuttered in chase of 198 in the one-off one-day international against Ireland on Friday before Ben Foakes rescued them from 101/6. On Sunday, in the T20I against Pakistan, it went down to the final over, with Morgan guiding his team to a seven-wicket victory. Both wins were far from comfortable, but that does not worry Morgan.
“Two close matches are great practice for us [going into a World Cup],” he told Sky Sports. “The guys are learning from this as we go on. They were two different challenges in the space of three days.
“Given we have a fixture in Cardiff during the World Cup, it is very important we get back into the habit of knowing the dimensions of the ground, feeling comfortable with either chasing or setting, and getting our plans right when we are bowling.”
Morgan also spoke of the importance of playing a young side. “We made a lot of changes today, three guys coming in [Jofra Archer, Ben Duckett and Foakes], and making their debuts, so getting over the line for the guys coming in, and playing a young team, is important.
“It makes it easier for them to learn and assess their own performance and the team performance in the right way, as opposed to looking inwards and blaming themselves for losing a game.”
Morgan was lavish in his praise of Archer, who returned 2/29 in his four overs and put the brakes on Pakistan with the dismissals of Haris Sohail and Babar Azam in the 15th over. They were both set batsmen, who had put on a century stand, and Pakistan were able to add only 39 runs in the remaining 25 balls.
“I thought Jofra came on from the game in Ireland,” Morgan said. “Hopefully he’ll have an opportunity throughout the series [the five ODIs against Pakistan] to do the same.”
England and Pakistan will now clash in a five-match ODI series, beginning on Wednesday in London.