The England international was in the capital for the Zayed Cricket Academy camp.
What does it take to be a successful captain?
It is a question poised to many sportsmen and women throughout the globe who lead their teams onto the field to do battle, but only three men who have represented England on the world stage can truly answer this question.
Bobby Moore and Martin Johnson are the first two whose leadership of their respective football and rugby sides has been idolised since those famous days in London in 1966 and Sydney in 2003. The final man to join the iconic duo is the soft-spoken Eoin Morgan.
The Dublin-born cricketing hero conquered the world with his England side on 14 July 2019 in arguably the most dramatic Cricket World Cup match of all time and his response to the aforementioned conundrum is very simple; listen and be authentic.
“That’s a great question,” Morgan says. “I think the only answer I can give to that is [try to be like the] people I aspire to be or things I try and do. The two captains that I really learned a huge amount from where Sir Alastair Cook and Andrew Strauss.
“Straussie was the first captain that I played under. He was a guy that led from the front. He was very articulate. He always managed to nail every team talk every time that he spoke or addressed anybody and it was actually when I got the captaincy, I asked him from some advice, his one piece of advice was to be as authentic as you can be. Don’t try to be him or Cookie, or anybody in that regard. Be yourself.
“But probably the most valuable thing I picked up from outside of watching him or telling me what to do is watching him listen. There’s a reason he nailed every team talk he did. He was able to surmise the situation and listen to the mood in the camp and delivered what needed to be delivered. I have used that for the last number of years.”
It is advice that has served him well in the last few months, when criticism has come for England’s failure to take home the T20 World Cup in the UAE last year and a 3-2 series defeat to the West Indies in January. He highlights the team’s comments will always supersede any noise from outside the camp.
“Outside judgement is going to be there. That’s part and parcel of being captain and if you find yourself looking outside for acknowledgement or a certain amount of gratuity, I think you compromise the morals in which you operate. That’s not how I operate. I always operate within my own terms, the team’s terms and make the best decision for the team.”
Morgan will have to use all that captaincy nous as England head into a busy summer before turning their attention to the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2022. Kicking off with a three-game ODI series in Netherlands, July will see 12 games (6 T20s and 6ODIs) in 24 days against India and South Africa. And while the 35-year-old admits there is a lot of managing needed to keep players fresh, the schedule provides opportunities to build on England’s strength in depth.
“[It is a] Huge year. When we try and predict forward to what our plans are, there’s obviously got to be a sacrifice along the way. Test matches are priority and then between the other two formats you have identify what you’re trying to achieve and we are at a level of expectation now where we want to win a World Cup, that’s where it’s at.
“We have really good players, world class, sought-after around the world but until the World Cup in November, priority is going to be T20 and it can be a little bit of a juggling matter when it comes to defending a [ODI] World Cup next year but you’ve certainly got to play what’s in front of you.
“I think we’ve got the players to do it. We have a huge amount of strength in depth to be able to do that and not a lot of countries can do that.”
Speaking from Abu Dhabi, England’s most capped one-day international was in the UAE capital having been coaching at Abu Dhabi Cricket’s Spring Smash Masterclass Camp which saw children aged from eight to 19 learn top cricketing tips from Morgan as well as Ireland captain Paul Stirling.
The master batsman believes cricket in the country is in rude health with the big turnout at the Zayed Cricket Academy organised camp as well as the Men’s side’s recent qualification for the T20 World Cup in November.
“I think having been in both camps, there are very few countries that can say that they have a level infrastructure and facility that can provide them to make a genuine step forward in threatening things.
“I have played with Ireland where you are thinking, right you need a lot of things to go your way in order to create an upset. Whereas the infrastructure [here] is developing day-by-day.
“I have come here since 2007, things have completely change and to see the number of kids out there now, the enthusiasm and the level of infrastructure that the [Abu Dhabi Sports Council], the cricket academy are willing to plough into it cannot be matched by other teams around the world that have all of a sudden shot up.
“I remember being in the Ireland team that all of a sudden shot up and then they had nothing behind it. But if you have a UAE team that shoots up and has something behind it, there’s got to be a level of consistency and growth behind it to back that up and I think that’s here.”
