England white-ball captain Eoin Morgan doesn’t count England as hot favourites as he opines that their arch-rivals Australia would start as favourites at home, given they are the defending champions. Morgan counted themselves as a joint second favourite along with India and Pakistan.
On Friday, ICC announced the fixtures of the tournament. The tournament will begin on October 16 while the final is scheduled to be played on November 13. England has been placed in Group 1 along with Australia, New Zealand, Afghanistan, and two qualifying teams. Australia and England will face each other on October 28 at the iconic ground MCG.
“We’d be joint second-favourites with India and Pakistan”- Eoin Morgan
“Given Australia won, they would go in favourites. I’d like to think we’d be joint second, if we continue on a reasonable run of form between now and then, probably with India and Pakistan. We know Australia’s different, we know our guys play really well in Australia”, Morgan said.
In the last edition, England lost the semifinal against New Zealand. But Morgan is quite focused to get prepared well for what might be his last T20 World Cup.
“It makes us feel a little bit more at ease than planning for conditions that we might not go in as one of the favorites. It makes us feel a little bit comfortable, we know what works in Australia,” he added.
England is currently a 5-match series in West Indies as they faced a 9-wicket thrashing in the first match on Saturday. Though England is playing with almost a string side as all England players (except Sam Billings) part of Ashes have been rested for this series. England had a horrible start with the bat as they bowled out for a mere 103, thanks to the lower-order contribution from Chris Jordan and Adil Rashid.
England has quite packed home summer as they are scheduled to play 3 T20Is each against India and South Africa as part of preparation ahead of the mega event. England won the Men’s T20 World Cup in the 2010 edition under the leadership of Paul Collingwood. They finished as runners-up in the 2016 edition.
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