Leeds: Eoin Morgan admits England forgot about the basics of a run chase in a shock defeat to Sri Lanka but has promised to bounce back against defending champions Australia in their next game on Tuesday.
England suffered a shocking 20-run defeat at the hands of Sri Lanka here on Friday, failing to chase down what looked like a sub-par 232/9.
“You look at the basics of a run chase, partnerships are very important. We struggled to get enough of them, or one substantial one, going. We had a couple of individual innings but that is not going to be enough to win the game,” Morgan was quoted as saying by ICC website.
Ben Stokes made an unbeaten 82 and Joe Root 57 for the hosts, but the two ran out of partners even as Lasith Malinga led a remarkable fightback.
“Quite a few wickets were turning points, simply in the fact that you have got guys coming in at six, who average 40, seven who average 30, we bat all the way down. So every single wicket is quite important because every single one could have salvaged a partnership that could win you the game,” insisted Morgan.
With England scheduled to face Australia at Lord’s next week, Morgan has asked his teammates to come back strongly.
“When we get beaten we tend to come back quite strong, we tend to resort to aggressive, smart and positive cricket so let’s hope that’s the case on Tuesday.
“The message is quite simple, we need to do the basics along with the way that we play as well. There is no reason why it shouldn’t be, we are going to play competitive games and are not going to win every game in this World Cup,” said Morgan.
“We need to go back to the process that has taken us to being a strong side in the world,” he added.
A lowly Sri Lanka had only one win in the tournament coming into this clash and too against Afghanistan, but Morgan insisted they didn’t underestimate their opponents.
“Mally (Malinga), he has been around for a long time, so bowling like that is not a surprise at all. We are going to lose games in the group stages.
“We didn’t deserve to win this game. There were a couple of challenges that presented themselves with the wicket and we didn’t overcome them,” said the skipper.
England were without the services of injured Jason Roy at the top of the order and their slow start in the chase might have hampered their chances of winning, but Morgan begged to differ.
“If you look at the games we have played. We would love (Roy) in the side and he is a huge strength at the top of the order but that is not why we lost the game or why we might have struggled on this wicket,” said Morgan.
