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ICC CHAMPIONS TROPHY

June 1, 2017

Eoin Morgan

The Oval, London

England vs Bangladesh: England won by 8 wickets

Q. Obviously a very good batting pitch. Was that a score you thought you could get if you batted well?
EOIN MORGAN: Yeah, absolutely. At the halfway mark, we spoke about putting a couple partnerships together or one guy going on and getting a big score.

Obviously we did that pretty well today. Obviously Alex continued his form. Joe, unbelievable, as usual. And it was nice for me to get some runs, as well.

Q. Great to get a win under your belt, but is it tempered by what happened to Chris? Obviously a side strain.
EOIN MORGAN: It is a little bit, yeah. He's obviously been very impressive for us over the last couple of years, and a mainstay, very reliable guy. And it is a worry when he goes off the field and can't come back on and bowl.

He's going to have a scan tonight and we should have the results either late tonight or early tomorrow morning.

Q. Just following on from that, side strains can be quite difficult injuries for fast bowlers. If he is out of the tournament, how much of a blow is that for you guys, and do you still feel, though, that you've got the kind of firepower to deal with it?
EOIN MORGAN: Yeah, I think so. I think some of the guys today picked up the load pretty well. You know, when one of your main bowlers can only bowl two overs, it's asking a lot of the rest of the team to be able to stem the flow.

At one stage, Bangladesh looked like they were getting 330, and to peg it back from there I thought was a credit to them. They adapted to the longer boundary pretty well, and to wicket -- it was a really good wicket to bat on. I thought they did well.

Q. And the side strain, if he's out of the tournament?
EOIN MORGAN: Side strains are a big confidence thing, aren't they? Yeah, he would definitely be a loss if he couldn't play.

Q. What was the thinking behind leaving out Adil this late stage?
EOIN MORGAN: Yeah, we felt given the opposition playing against Bangladesh, they probably would have preferred to play against a lot more spin, as opposed to four quicks, and obviously Ben. So that contributed to what we wanted to -- how we wanted to balance the side and how we sort of had foreseen them playing. Their top three batters are lefties, and the possibility of getting Joe or Mo on early was an option.

Q. How is Joe's calf? And secondly, do you think the rule about runners needs to be looked at, because clearly he wasn't getting any advantage from that injury, and it could have been something that got worse.
EOIN MORGAN: I don't know if it needs to be looked at. It was -- it was changed I think because too many people were taking advantage of it, and I thought that was a good change for the game.

Joe is all right. He wasn't in extreme pain. It was manageable, so given that we have four days between now and the next game, hopefully he'll rest up well and be fully fit.

Q. When you sat here yesterday, you said that Jason Roy was guaranteed his place in the rest of the tournament, and he had another disappointing innings; does that remain the case going into the next game on Tuesday?
EOIN MORGAN: It certainly does. I thought he was terribly unlucky today. It was quite smart, bowling slow a bowl from the opening bowler, and brave. It was a big gamble. But that sort of stuff can happen. You can get out in that sort of fashion when you're short on runs. But yeah, certainly we believe in him.

Q. You talked about re-stretching Bangladesh to a manageable total. When Tamim was nearing a century, it took a lot of balls to get from 84 to 100. That success in slowing him down probably contributed to your success overall.
EOIN MORGAN: Yeah, I think two things. Obviously when you have an in-batsman in, it can be very destructive, particularly at that period, when he's obviously 80, or goes on and get a hundred and passed then.

But I thought our bowlers did really well managing his strike rate and then taking two wickets on the bounce. I thought he did a great job.

Q. Just on Chris, is it something that he'd been feeling or just suddenly went?
EOIN MORGAN: Absolutely nothing. He was chomping at the bit to play. If we rushed him, he might have played the last game of the one-day series but we can't want to rush him.

Q. You said that you were quite happy to shuffle the bowling pack according to positions and the opposition. Meanwhile, the batting order seems to be quite set in stone. How do you kind of explain that discrepancy?
EOIN MORGAN: I suppose we are trying to do two different things, really. With the batting, obviously the freedom in part of which we have able to play with is backed up by selection.

You can't ask guys to go out and play positive cricket and whack it everywhere. There's an element, a high-risk element; and then drop them as soon as they are lacking runs. On previous teams, that has happened and we don't want it to happen. We want to reinforce confidence so the guys can go out and we can make 300, an easy score to get by playing real positive cricket. And contributing to that, both as a captain and coach, and selectors, by backing your own players up.

Q. On the kind of wicket we have seen in England right now, do you think in this tournament chasing is going to be the trend as teams tend to chase down 300 with quite ease?
EOIN MORGAN: I think it will. Not on -- not just because of that. I think the early start will contribute to that. If you look at the last Champions Trophy, that was a big factor, as well.

So as we're looking to bowl first, because with a 10.30 start, I think if you play at grounds like Trent Bridge and Edgbaston and they were afternoon games, I think the sides would look to post a score.

Q. After the 2015 World Cup, England have the best average in the overs between 10 and 40. Would you talk about the mindset that you guys bat with, and why it doesn't matter whether you set a target or defend one, what exactly do you focus on?
EOIN MORGAN: Yeah, the mindset is something we focus on for -- since we got together as a group after that World Cup. Obviously focusing on a positive mindset, not looking too much into analysis. We use information if we feel it's relevant, but allowing the guys to go out and play with a lot of freedom, and not take the game by the scruff of the neck and take it to the opposition.

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