Eoin Morgan interview: London Freeman recharging in bid for T20 World Cup redemption

It is almost three months until Eoin Morgan will play cricket again and, as of last week, he is allowed to fill his time off in a couple of curious ways.

Morgan is now a Freeman of the City of London (so, by the way, is Morgan Freeman). This honour is believed to have first been bestowed in 1237, and the perks have changed a little bit over the years.

Once there was a time that Morgan would have taken his livestock across Tower Bridge without paying a toll. Or, this is personal favourite: “I thought the funniest one was that while you were drunk, you were allowed to walk around the streets of London with your sword drawn to protect yourself… Don’t worry, I have no plans to do that but I have a hilarious picture in my head”.

Morgan accepts that this, like the postbox that Royal Mail printed his name upon in St John’s Wood a couple of years ago, is one of the “stranger” honours he has received since becoming a World Cup-winning captain in 2019. “It goes back such a long time, it has changed a lot over time, but you see the names and it’s a massive honour,” he says.

Morgan was born in Ireland but sees himself very much as a Londoner now. Having lived north of the river since June 2003, when he first joined Middlesex, he moved south recently with his Australian wife Tara and their young son.

“It is home for me,” he tells Standard Sport. “I’ve lived here longer than I lived in Dublin. I’ve built a life around London. We have a child and plan to have more, and see this as a place we will live for a long time.”

Home is where Morgan will be in the coming weeks. He was not picked up in last month’s IPL auction, bringing to an end his association with Kolkata Knight Riders, who he captained to last year’s final.

“I thought my best chance was to be picked up in the second round once squads had been put together, if someone needed help as a reserve middle order, experienced player, captain, whatever,” he says. “But by the time the first round finished, pretty much every team had boxed that off, so I had no chance.”

Morgan has opted to take the opportunity to refresh – even if an offer as a replacement comes, meaning his next competitive cricket will come when Middlesex’s Vitality Blast campaign begins at Radlett on May 25. He is over the thigh injury that kept him out of three games in England’s T20 series in Barbados in January.

“I won’t play any cricket for two months at least, regardless of opportunities that present themselves,” he says. “I have decided to take time away given the year we have ahead.

“In 2015 I had a break in the middle of the summer where I got to the stage where I had fallen completely out of love with the game and was in survival mode. Since, I have tried to plot and plan so that doesn’t happen again. Covid has presented challenges within that so I have been more cautious, not going to every tournament, having extended breaks.”

While Morgan admits he is “more selective” now because of the strains of bubble life and “the body of a 35-year-old”, there is also an acceptance that England’s white-ball year, which ends in Australia for another T20 World Cup, demands he is at his best.

“Absolutely,” he says, when asked if the fire still burns inside to represent England. But he also knows he has to score more runs to stay in the team. In 18 T20i innings since August 2020, he has not reached 50. He has not made a half-century in any T20 in his last 41 knocks. His form is infamously fickle, and there is confidence that he will come through.

“It’s a fact [that I have not scored enough runs],” he says. “I’d agree. I am viewing it as a challenge that I have been through before and I’m hoping to come out the other side. I will be using this break to recharge, but also to have a little bit of time to work on things that you don’t have time to work on while you are in competition.”

Undermanned England lost 3-2 in Barbados but, with the World Cup on his mind, Morgan saw the series as a success.

“It was a great opportunity to bring the younger guys in to give them a taste, what the level of expectation is,” he says. “When I started playing for England, the level of expectation was ‘congratulations, good luck’. Now the expectation is match-winning performances and contributing to wins. It’s much harder for them now. But when you ask more of them, it’s amazing how much more they give. Look at Phil Salt, Tom Banton.”

Those players will heap pressure on his place when England get another shot at the World Cup, just a year after a crushing defeat to New Zealand in the semi-final in Abu Dhabi.

“I am never grateful for hard lessons because you are not being good enough,” he says. “Over time it will make us a better team, more consistent. The guys who went through it last year will no doubt be the majority of the squad this year. Having memories like that reasonably recently is not a bad thing.”