Dealing with spin is key says Morgan

da marjack bet： Eoin Morgan says improving England’s performances against spin in one-day cricket is key to them improving their consistency

ESPNcricinfo staff02-Jul-2011

Eoin Morgan says improving England’s performances against spin in one-day cricket is key to them finding consistency in the format.England were undone by Sri Lanka’s spinners in their 69-run loss at Headingley, with Suraj Randiv and Jeevan Mendis sharing five wickers in 15 overs between them. It was a familiar pattern for England who have been unable to counter slow bowling in ODI cricket for a number of years.Morgan believes playing positive cricket is imperative to them overcoming the problem.”Spin seems to tie us down, so that is something we have to improve – recognising we have to make that improvement as a unit rather than one or two guys going hell for leather,” he told reporters. “It has always been a problem for England, particularly in major tournaments.”The Indians are masters. They take the positive approach of whacking it out of the ground, between milking it around. We need to have a similar attitude, because we have shown when we have positive attitudes we normally win.”Last year, when England were compiling a run of ODI success by beating Bangladesh, Australia and Pakistan in successive series, they appeared to be making progress as a limited-overs outfit. That came to an abrupt halt after the last Ashes, when England lost the seven-match ODI series against Australia 6-1.That crushing defeat preceded a poor display at the World Cup and Morgan is certain the difference came with how England played the Australian slow bowlers in June-July 2010.”When we went through a spell of playing very good one-day cricket that is the area we capitalised on – particularly against Australia, when we played [Nathan] Hauritz particularly well and then took the same approach when [Steve] Smith came on,” he said. “Our playing of spin dictates how we do – because when we went to Australia this year, we didn’t play their spinners well.”Despite criticism from some quarters on another area – the lack of centuries England batsmen compile in ODI cricket – Morgan doesn’t see it as an issue.”It is not an inability to score hundreds [that is losing England games],” he said. “Over the past year or so, a few of the guys have got hundreds – but 80 off 75 balls will win you games. We have had people playing match-winning knocks, and it is not a major problem. It is not a massive thing in one-day cricket that you go out and score a hundred.”