New Delhi: England’s top-order capitulation against Afghanistan’s inexperienced bowling attack in yesterday’s World Twenty20 match will worry their fans but skipper Eoin Morgan isn’t concerned.
Morgan’s team slumped to 57-6 inside 10 overs against an Afghan side starved of top-level cricket with the same batting line-up that chased down a huge 230-run target against South Africa last week.
Six of the seven dismissed Englishmen fell to spin bowlers on a Feroz Shah Kotla track which, Morgan admitted, was far from a raging turner.
“We chased down 230 a game ago. It was simply a matter of not adapting,” Morgan told reporters after the 15-run victory over Afghanistan which kept his team on course for a place in the semi-finals.
Down the order, Moeen Ali (41 not out) and David Willey (20 not out) plundered 57 runs in 5.3 overs to rescue the 2010 champions but the late rally could not gloss over the top order failure. “I think we’ve been practising similar things that we needed today but we actually just didn’t produce,” Morgan said.
Asked if the fear of loss against an associate nation crossed his mind, Morgan said: “No, absolutely not. Before the game, we knew a lot about Afghanistan. They are a good side and certainly if they are going to beat us, we need to under-perform.
“We let them in today by under-performing with the bat but I thought our bowling was outstanding. In the field as well, we were pretty good, which is a good sign.”
Looking ahead, Morgan said it was only a matter of adapting to the pitch, something he expects his team to do in their next Group One match against Sri Lanka on Saturday.
“Coming here and playing a T20 World Cup, I think this is the kind of wicket that every single one of us was expecting,” he said. “We spoke a lot about it before we play. I think executions of our plans today were off by a long way.
“It’s very important between now and the Sri Lanka game that we sit down as a group and emphasise what we are trying to do and make sure it’s the right plan, reinforce that...”
Asked to explain his own dismissal for a golden duck, the England captain said: “An error in judgement. I got the message that it was turning and it didn’t turn. I misjudged.”