ICC T20 WORLD CUP 2021

November 9, 2021

Eoin Morgan

Sheikh Zayed Stadium

England

Semi Final Pre Match Media Conference

Q. Facing New Zealand again. You won the semifinal against them the last T20 World Cup. Of course that was the 50-over World Cup final. How much are you looking for this meeting?

EOIN MORGAN: We can't wait. Obviously a big achievement within itself coming through the group stage like we did, topping the table. But now it's all about producing as close to your best as we can. We know how good New Zealand are.

We know how consistent they've been over the last number of World Cups, not only the recent ones but you look further and beyond Kane's role as captain. New Zealand have always been extremely competitive in and around semifinals and finals, consistently, for some time now. So we're looking forward to the challenge.

Q. Unlike those two meetings I mentioned earlier, you won't have Jason Roy this time. What does his absence do to the side and the balance of the side?

EOIN MORGAN: I think like losing any of your experienced players, you can't really replace that experience that Jason has. He's played integral parts in our two previous World Cup campaigns. So very similarly to other guys that have been injured or have missed the tournament through injury.

Other guys have found something else within themselves to either try and fill that gap or contribute in a different way to the team.

If you look right from the very beginning of our selection process leading into the World Cup, we've got a number of big name players missing from our squad and that's continued both pre-tournament with Tom Curran and into the tournament with Jason Roy and Tymal Mills. I think of all the things we've done well throughout this tournament that are probably the strongest point has been the resilience within our squad to be able to find a way to move forward and forge on.

Q. Today the independent commission for equity in cricket have launched their call for evidence asking stakeholders in the English game to come forward and share their experiences of discrimination. From your point, why is it important to share the experience so the commission can get as accurate as possible a view, I suppose, of the English game?

EOIN MORGAN: The last bit of your question was crackling. Do you mind repeating it?

Q. I wonder why from your point of view it is important that people do share those experiences of discrimination with the commission so that they can gather as accurate a reflection I guess as possible of the English game.

EOIN MORGAN: I think in a time of change, I think all opinions and examples need to be heard in order to, I suppose, find the best solution in trying to move forward and make things better for the future generations.

Q. There's lots of interest back here about these excellent performances that your team is putting together. It's another excellent tournament for England and there's of course a lot of coverage of still what's going on at Yorkshire. What do you do as a captain to balance up those two things going on? I'm sure there's still a lot of interest and concern in your dressing room about what's ongoing from Yorkshire. As a captain do you try to shelter the players from that or do you encourage and embrace any concerns that the players might have?

EOIN MORGAN: No, we definitely don't shelter anything that's going on, particularly things as serious and as relevant to our squad as anything that we've ever done, really.

So when matters of such a serious nature ever arise, particularly when it comes to discrimination and bear in mind that we talk about discrimination quite a lot because in our group there are a lot of diverse, a lot of diversity.

So we try and share our storeys as much as we can. We're all products of county cricket and at some stage throughout our careers county cricket has had a substantial role to play in the position we're in at the moment.

And I think after winning the 2019 World Cup and becoming, I suppose, a more formidable side with a bigger platform, that has allowed us to feel comfortable enough to continue to tell our different storeys along the road and ultimately feel comfortable within our own skin to play great cricket on the field but also to be a really strong role model on the field.

And what's going on in Yorkshire, we've continued to chat about things and how it might affect younger generations.

Being at the forefront of change both on and off the field for us is not always easy. Particularly at the beginning.

And I think we're at one of those stages right now for Yorkshire. And within the group we talk about seeing the bigger picture down the line and the huge benefits we will see coming into that county.

Q. I guess when you walk out to this big occasion again tomorrow and followers of English cricket, whatever their race or background or culture, want to look at your team and think I could belong on that team. Do you feel that's the case now? Do you feel the importance of that?

EOIN MORGAN: Certainly within the changing, we do. We feel comfortable about talking about things like it simply because we think of ourselves as younger cricketers. We all come from different backgrounds.

And we all want to be able to share our dream that we've dreamt about for so long as kids and have been so looking to live that dream.

We want young kids to be able to picture that but also picture a pathway in a way to be able to achieve it. So the things we do during this World Cup and beyond are very important in contributing so.

Q. From a cricket perspective, would you accept that you're strong favourites for this match?

EOIN MORGAN: I wouldn't say strong favourites. New Zealand have a full strength squad. We've obviously been hampered with a lot of injuries throughout this tournament. We're playing really good cricket. The guys are extremely excited about the challenge against New Zealand and potentially the opportunity that might follow that. But we need to play really good cricket in order to beat them.

Q. Wondered whether you made a decision on who would open the batting in place of Jason, Johnny is going to step up there and how the team might all be altered?

EOIN MORGAN: Within the group we've made a decision. Not willing to share that, unfortunately. But the balance of the sides will still be determined on how the wicket looks and how we matchup against the Black Caps.

Q. Do you have a word on one of your players, Liam Livingstone and how excited you are about his progress. I know he's not one of the more experienced guys yet, but we saw a glimpse of what he's capable with that huge blow in Sharjah. And obviously we've seen him score a T20 100 in the summer. I guess he's kind of replacing Ben Stokes in terms of that sort of three-dimensional cricketer, kind of doing everything for you out there. Just what a talent is he and could this be, I guess, a chance for him really to explode on the global stage?

EOIN MORGAN: Yeah, I'm a big fan of Liam. He's a guy that has the ability to contribute a bit like Ben, at any stage of the game. And he plays a brand of cricket that makes it easy for him to come in and settle into the side.

We want him to be that attacking aggressive player who takes the game on the whole time. I think the role that he's played, particularly with the bat, is not an easy role to play, batting in the lower middle order, to continue to take high risks. But he seems to want to do that, which is great because if you have somebody who comes in who starts thinking about himself, it creates a bit of an issue around role clarity and what guys are contributing to the team.

So he's been extremely selfless when he's come in and done that role. And all we would like to do is to continue that, because when he gets going he's very difficult to stop. He's one of the cleanest strikers on the ball we have within our squad. He's brilliant to have around.

Q. Does he now take over from Jos as the biggest hitter on your side; do you think he's certainly the biggest hitter in this tournament?

EOIN MORGAN: I don't know, because that whatever you call the range finder thing that projects how big 6s are hit, I think that was on the blink in Dubai when we played against Australia.

Q. The opener, the big talking point, I won't press you for names, but obviously you're blessed with top-order option guys who have plenty of experience at the top of the order. Was it a difficult decision to sort of decide who would come in for Jason alongside Jos?

EOIN MORGAN: I don't think it is. I think, like you mentioned, we are blessed with guys who can bat at the top of the order and actually who want to bat at the top of the order.

If you look around, the highest runs scored, the big name players, they all want to bat or are batting in the top three in every team.

And we're lucky that we have guys who queue up and want to bat in that top three, which is great because they want to go head to head with the big named players in the tournament and big named bowlers of the opposition.

So I think we're in a very good position that we have a number of guys to choose from.

Q. Since the 2015 World Cup, you played a lot of series that have been gone into the last match. But you've often tended to prevail in those matches and in tournament games, thinking about the 2016 semifinal and the 2017 Captains Trophy, grouped in the 2019 World Cup twice. I know the past doesn't guarantee the future, but is there any slight edge you can take from that when the pressure is on, that bit more intense, you tend to have the upper hand in the last few years?

EOIN MORGAN: I don't think so. I've probably taken more confidence from recent performances and when there have been either difficult decisions to make or an opportunity to take the game away from the opposition we've been able to do that.

And I think being in a frame of mind where you're aware enough to recognize situations by that I think is an even better situation than previous games that we've gone into because I think in those particular games that you mentioned I'm not sure how many guys actually played those games. It will probably be half of the team and say not three-quarters of the majority of side.

Again, it's no good if only half of you take confidence from that; you need the full experience.

Q. You mentioned the guys who will be missing tomorrow. Given all the big names that you've had to do without in this tournament, where would reaching the final under those circumstances rank among your various white ball achievements as England captain?

EOIN MORGAN: That's a good question. I think it would be a really strong representation of what the 50-over side have achieved since 2015. I think we had a glimpse of that during our summer when we had to replace 15 players against Pakistan and they ended up beating Pakistan's strongest ODI team 3-0.

I think that was a good instance of an English cricketer. But I think if we could achieve something like that it would be, yeah, quite close to, oh, you might only get to the final and lose, but getting to the final would be a hell of an achievement.

Q. There's been a bit of interest in the signal system that you guys use as a team. Could you just talk about the kind of importance and use of that for you as a captain?

EOIN MORGAN: We started using it -- the start of 2020, as, I suppose, an instrument to try and make me be a better captain. There's no better way of calling in decisions that I make on the sideline than remembering exactly what the black-and-white decision might have been. So it's trying to integrate all the information with exactly what's going on in my brain and throughout the game.

It has helped my captaincy at different stages, just for various reasons. It's given a different input. It's helped myself and Jos come to better decisions at different times and, equally, sometimes we've gone against it and it's worked as well.

Q. Is there a particular decision that you think that signal has really helped with?

EOIN MORGAN: There's not been a standout one yet, no. I mean, you think of a big decision to make in a game which probably would have been the biggest decision of the tournament so far, was to bowl Chris Woakes those three balls, (indiscernible) against Sri Lanka. Again there's no signal for that. There's no question for that. Everything -- there's no answer for that. Everything is in the heat of the moment, who do you bowl into on the short side? Is it your all-arounder, or do you waste one of your genuine bowlers with an over there.

Q. And as a knockout match, is that kind of one of the things you want to guard against is, players go into their shell a bit and kind of being a bit risk-averse rather than playing the aggressive kind of brand that you like to play?

EOIN MORGAN: We haven't done that in about four years. So I'd be very disappointed.

Q. England has a very solid white ball depth. It's something to be proud of. I wanted to know, does losing players not make you bog down? Because if any other teams lose players like Ben Stokes, Roy, that calibre, they might really get bogged down. But England comes out and every new player shines in every match.

EOIN MORGAN: I think it's a really good compliment to the changing room and all the players and maybe more the support staff and the coaching staff who create an environment where young players can come in and thrive.

It's a great culture to be able to come in and both learn and thrive at the same time. And it's seemed to work for us for some time. We've always talked about having a strength in depth within our squads as a whole.

There have been some instances where we've had to put out replacing teams, but I think in doing so you could have 30 or 40 players within your domestic setup that could play international cricket or have the ability to do so.

But if the right environment isn't set up, it doesn't matter what 11 you pick. You're not going to perform as an inexperienced player, you're going to have to have go with experienced players the whole time.

Q. You people are doing well in this World Cup and now in the knockout round, do you think there's been some discussion about New Zealand bowling in the dressing room that you have to do something special for that? And my second part of the question is, what do you think about the Pakistan performances, and you are looking something as a final contestant?

EOIN MORGAN: I think New Zealand as a whole are a very strong team. It's probably one of their strongest points. They work well together. They never rely solely on one or two players. It's always a very collective effort. And I haven't watched any of the Pakistan games yet so I can't comment.

Q. Picking up on what you were saying about determining the balance of the side. Is there a chance you replace Jason with one of the bowling all-arounders rather than a specialist batter, and could you explain what that decision would come down to?

EOIN MORGAN: I suppose replacing him with another bowler would mean that you have 28 genuine overs on the field and a lot of options.

If you were to go with a batter, it would mean a like-for-like replacement. When we turn up and look at the wicket, depending if it's a really good batting, predicting if it's going to be a really good batting wicket, might need the extra bit of bowling. If it's not, you might need the extra bit of batting.