Thursday 20 December 2012

Captain Morgan Suffers Loss

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England skipper Eoin Morgan felt his team failed to capitalise on a great start with the bat in their five-wicket defeat to India in the opening Twenty20 International in Pune.

A much-changed side looked set to post a challenging total when they reached 89-1 at the halfway stage of their innings, Alex Hales leading the way with a breezy half-century.

However the tourists lost three wickets in 11 runs to surrender the momentum, meaning they had to rely on Jos Buttler (33 not out) to get to 157-6. India had no problems chasing down such a target, coasting home with five wickets and 13 balls to spare.

"We lacked a bit of discipline with our batting," Morgan - leading the side in the absence of the injured Stuart Broad - said. "We got off to an absolutely great start.

"Alex Hales played tremendously, along with Luke Wright. But in that middle period we failed to kick on. The positivity wasn't there in our batting and we were 15 or 20 short.

"We continually lost wickets, which was a shame after the start we had. We were on for a good score."

Tim Bresnan did take two wickets in the fifth over to raise England's hopes only for Yuvraj Singh who had earlier taken 3-19 with the ball, to put their total in perspective, hammering 38 from just 21 deliveries.

"I felt we didn't get the early wickets, but we always felt we were in the game," Morgan said of the bowling display.

"Again, we lacked a little bit of discipline in our bowling but we were always up against it with that score."

Despite the defeat, Morgan was still remaining positive ahead of the second and final match of the T20I series in Mumbai on Saturday, which can be seen live on Sky Sports.

"We are a tremendously young side and the guys showed a lot of promise," the left-handed batsman added. "We will have to pick ourselves up from here and hopefully in two days' time produce a win."


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