Eoin Morgan and England will not have played too often in the kind of atmosphere they will find themselves in on Sunday evening. Eden Gardens in Kolkata will be packed to its 60,000-plus capacity as they take on West Indies in the World Twenty20 final.
The usual routine ahead of these games is for captains to insist that they will be treating it as just another game. Not for Morgan. As England attempt to win this event for a second time Morgan wants his side to understand it will not be normal.
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“We’re quite real about things,” he said on Saturday. “We know it’s not going to be a normal game. Even the semi-final we played [against New Zealand at Delhi], there was quite a lot of hype around the expectation of playing in a final, and I want all of our players to embrace it.
“Tomorrow everything will feel a little bit rushed to start with, but it is important we are in the right frame of mind to slow it down when needed and more importantly execute our skills.”
Morgan was cautiously optimistic about the kind of surface they will play on, noting ahead of training a covering of grass he feels might produce a wicket suited to both sides’ powerful batting orders.
“I have had a look at the wicket, yesterday not today,” he said. “There is a nice covering of grass and it looks a really good cricket wicket, which is really good news. I suppose coming to Kolkata you’d expect it to have no grass, but it’s nice to see a covering of grass holding it together.”
“The wickets we’ve played on in our group weren’t typical Indian wickets. I suppose it has surprised me a little. I’m thankful I have reacted to what’s been in front of me and used what’s been effective in games, rather than just sticking with spin the whole time.”
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