England’s 2019 World Cup-winning captain Eoin Morgan has announced his retirement from international cricket with immediate effect. Morgan’s last international outing was against the Netherlands earlier this month where he registered two consecutive ducks. The Irish-born cricketer had fitness issues ahead of the inconsequential third ODI as he backed out from the contest citing a groin injury.

Morgan had reportedly said last year that he wants to play the 2022 T20 World Cup in Australia and try to feature in the 2023 ODI World Cup in India, however, considering his recent form, multiple recent reports suggested that the English limited-overs skipper would take a call on his career on Tuesday, June 28. Accordingly, ECB confirmed in a press release that Morgan has announced his international retirement.

England’s best white-ball captain – Eoin Morgan

Morgan will go down in history as the best white-ball captain England has ever produced after being appointed as the full-time limited-overs captain in 2014. After being knocked out by Bangladesh from the 2015 World Cup in a must-win group encounter at the Adelaide Oval, a determined Morgan took criticisms in the right spirit and went on to transform England into the best ODI unit, working in tandem with the then director of England cricket Andrew Strauss and coach Trevor Bayliss.

It is to be noted that the Three Lions have also performed consistently in the ICC tournaments over the years. While they won the 2019 ODI World Cup at home, they finished as the runners-up in the 2016 T20 World Cup in India and made the semifinals of the ICC Champions Trophy 2017 and ICC T20 World Cup 2021.

Under Morgan’s reign, England also went on to register world record ODI scores on two occasions. The first one came against arch-rivals Australia in 2018 when they posted a mammoth 481/6 while the second one was registered against the Netherlands recently (498/4). It remains to be seen who will be appointed as Morgan’s limited-overs successor for England with star all-rounder Moeen Ali and wicketkeeper-batter Jos Buttler being the candidates.

Overall, Eoin Morgan scored 7701 runs in ODIs and 2458 runs in T20Is playing 248 and 115 matches respectively. He also featured for England in 16 Tests scoring 700 runs. However, his career will be remembered for transforming England’s white-ball cricket entirely over the last seven years. (by mm)