[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The Kolkata Knight Riders fans are on a journey. The season isn’t going their way and they want a change at the top. The press picks up on it. “Captaincy questioned by fans,” the first headlines announce. A few days later, another loss and this time “Furious KKR fans want” to replace the captain. A week or two later it’s “angry KKR fans” who want a new leader. By now it’s so much of a story that Kapil Dev is asked to comment on it. Brad Hogg is defending the embattled captain of his former team as well.
Right now you’re probably thinking about Eoin Morgan and the first half of KKR’s season earlier this year. The only thing then that seemed to stop Morgan from losing his job was the Covid-19 outbreak that postponed the season.
“Angry KKR Fans Want Eoin Morgan To Replace Dinesh Karthik As Captain” and “Furious KKR fans Want Eoin Morgan To Replace Dinesh Karthik As Captain After Sharjah Defeat”.They were actually from last season.
Less than 12 months ago KKR fans took to social media to suggest that then captain Dinesh Karthik should be sacked and replaced by Morgan. Halfway through the next tournament – not even a full year later – fans have started asking for Morgan to be fired.
Morgan’s leadership is elevated in England because he brought them something they had almost given up on. This Dublin middle-order player turned up and took England to a World Cup victory.
They had been a laughing stock pretty much since the world abandoned the red ball for the white. In 2015 when Morgan took over, England were not a limited-overs side, they were just limited. They stumbled around the world looking for par totals, and using their overused Test seamers in the hope the magic would work. It didn’t.
Then a failed Test player who loved the IPL came along and they only went and won their first 50-overs World Cup. So when Nick Hoult and Steve James wrote their book on England’s win, and the rise that preceded it, it was of course called Morgan’s Men: The Inside Story of England’s Rise from Cricket World Cup Humiliation to Glory.
Obviously others helped. Andrew Strauss played a big part in changing the planning and focus around the format, and by allowing English players to be at the IPL. Trevor Bayliss was a renowned white-ball coach who changed the mindset of how they played. And Nathan Leamon, along with the ECB analyst system, was being heard more and was given more power.
But in cricket we have given the captain extraordinary rights. A similar position in another sport is the American football quarterback, although they get constant real-time instructions from their coach. A captain is out there alone, making decisions, and when their team wins, we heap them with incredible praise. So they were Morgan’s men and he was given a CBE. This year, by resting players with the T20 World Cup in mind, the ECB prioritised Morgan’s needs over Joe Root’s, even as England were playing for a chance to make the World Test Championship final.
It was clear to any English fan who had seen generations of boring middle overs and death spells gone wrong that Morgan was a genius.
But I didn’t write those headlines out in full earlier.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
