Peter Hayter catches up with Andrew Strauss, who admits he was tempted to axe one-day captain Eoin Morgan after the 2015 World Cup campaign
Win or lose, the sight of Eoin Morgan leading out England to face New Zealand in the 2019 World Cup final at Lord’s – his success in getting them this far after 27 years of largely unrelenting and miserable failure and their rise to the position of the no.1 ranked One Day International team in the world – almost certainly hinged on one of the best examples in recent sporting history that it is not always the right thing to do to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Four and a bit years ago, following England’s abysmal showing in the 2015 World Cup in Australia and their failure to win a Test series against West Indies in the Caribbean, the heads of three men in the middle of the unholy mess were firmly on the block.
Managing director Paul Downton was considered completely out of touch with the modern international game. Coach Peter Moores was ridiculed as a stats-crunching automaton.
Morgan would surely suffer the fate of so many losing World Cup losing skippers before him.
Indeed, so desperate had the situation become that many outside and some within the corridors of power were actively discussing the following response:
Downton to be ditched in favour of the 2005 Ashes winning skipper Michael Vaughan.
Vaughan, in turn, to replace Moores with Yorkshire and Australia legend Jason Gillespie and bring back Kevin Pietersen, possibly even to replace Morgan as captain.
Mercifully this crackpot scheme was ultimately rejected.
Even after Andrew Strauss was appointed to replace Downton instead, he showed he was entirely in tune with the general mood for drastic action and took it by getting rid of Moores, replacing him with Trevor Bayliss to work alongside Paul Farbrace.
But one thing of which the former England captain was certain was that Morgan was going nowhere.
Denne historien er fra July 14, 2019-utgaven av The Cricket Paper.
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Denne historien er fra July 14, 2019-utgaven av The Cricket Paper.
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