Eoin Morgan doesn't think he has been underutilised by Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020 so far. The England left-hander is understanding of why he has been preferred lower down the order in a team glint with multiple impactful players through the line-up.
Morgan's position was a cause of debate on Saturday (October 3) as he came out to bat at No.6 and proved his team's last hope in their eventually unsuccessful chase of 229 in Sharjah against Delhi Capitals (DC).
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The 34-year-old struck a fantastic 18-ball 44, batting once again below all-rounder Andre Russell (13) and skipper Dinesh Karthik (6), who both had another failure. KKR lost the match by 18 runs in the end, leaving question marks whether Morgan could've made greater impact batting No.4?
"No, I don't think so," Morgan, however, said at the post-match press conference, as quoted by PTI. "When you look at our batting line-up, we have a number of match-winners, so it's very difficult to go up the order."
"Particularly when you have a world-class all-rounder in Andre Russell. He is an incredible striker, and when he comes up the order, obviously everybody else has to shift down a little bit," he added.
Apart from underperformance from the middle-order barring Morgan, the other of KKR's major issues include the poor form of opener Sunil Narine, for whom runs seem to have dried up without much optimism of a return to explosive ways in the powerplay.
Morgan, though, came in defence of the Trinidadian left-hander.
"Sunil is the type of player who can produce match-winning innings. It's never been a string of scores, over the years, but more about his impact in a game," he said. "He always takes the positive option, which summarises how we want to play our cricket."
Despite the loss, their second in four outings, Morgan thinks there are definitely positives for KKR to take forward.
"Delhi bowled well, to a position of strength and looked like winning it. It just wasn't meant to be," he said. "We move on, we played some fantastic cricket throughout so far but Delhi have looked more promising early in the tournament, so to come out and produce a fantastic game but not getting over the line, there are huge positives to take."
DC had their captain Shreyas Iyer (88*) leading from the front in the first half and, along with opener Prithvi Shaw (66) and fellow middle-order batsman Rishabh Pant (38), taking his team to a huge total of 228/4.
The team also found bowling heroes on the night in extremely difficult conditions for spinners and pacers alike, in Harshal Patel (2/34) and Anrich Nortje (3/33).
"I don't think a lot went wrong. To come to Sharjah, you expect a 200-plus in a game and potentially they got a couple of boundaries too many but we were still in the game till the 20th over," Morgan said.
"T20 can be over-complicated at times. I think when you play at a small ground, you can delve into people's mistake too much. So, going back and looking at the execution of our yorkers, length balls and bouncers and honest about how to move forward is important."
Russell, though not at his best with the bat, bowled a superb four-over spell (2/29) in the first innings. Apart from Morgan, Nitish Rana (58) and Rahul Tripathi (36) also batted exceptionally well. But KKR needed more in either department to inch past DC.
The team next face Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday (October 7).
