Eoin Morgan wants England players to fully utilize IPL 2021 to prepare for T20 World Cup

Eoin Morgan will lead the Kolkata Knight Riders in the IPL 2021.

England’s white-ball captain Eoin Morgan is excited for his team’s players to make the most of their time in the upcoming IPL 2021 in order to prepare themselves for the ICC T20 World Cup 2021 later this year, also to be held in India.

The T20 World Cup is scheduled to be hosted by India in October-November this year and Morgan expects English cricketers to take full advantage of the IPL, starting 9 April.

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“Taking advantage of the upcoming IPL is going to be huge. As a team and individuals, we don't want to stand still, we want to continue to move forward. Any opportunity guys get at the IPL, you want to try to make the most of it,” Morgan said after England lost the five-match T20I series to India 2-3.

England will be at home all summer, taking on New Zealand (two) and India (five) in seven Tests between June and September before they get to play white-ball cricket in Bangladesh and Pakistan in the build-up to the T20 World Cup in India later this year.

“We're going to be playing at home all summer and then we got to Bangladesh and Pakistan. You know, there's limited opportunity to get our best XI in those games. So I think the experience over the next couple of months is probably the most valuable, and then having the time to work on your game after that," said Morgan, England's ODI World Cup-winning skipper.

Eoin Morgan insists England is yet to finalize its T20 World Cup squad.

"I think we're too far away from the World Cup to see who could be in and out of the squad, what we will have throughout the summer is opportunities for those guys to stake their claim. Nobody's nailed on.

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If any player including myself looks that far ahead and thinks that their position is nailed down, they're mistaken because we want to improve as the rest of the world progresses. T20 as a game is progressing faster than any other of the formats, so we need to be quite flexible in how we want to improve. We can't be rigid,” said Morgan.

"We looked at it last summer with guys like Tom Banton, Sam Billings, and Moeen Ali (who has) taken on a great responsibility when he's had the opportunity,” he added.

England will now play a series of 3 ODIs against India which all be played at the MCA stadium in Pune.

(PTI inputs)