Playing spin and powerplay wickets: Eoin Morgan plotting England improvement in India ahead of World Cup tilt

NICK HOWSON: Seven months out from the 20-over showcase back in India, the captain has identified two key areas where his side must develop over the upcoming five-match series

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Unbeaten in their last six bilateral T20 series home and away, top of the ICC rankings, with the international game's No.1 batsman and the Indian Premier League MVP in their ranks, plus a winning mentality formed while winning the 50-over World Cup 20 months ago, the various pieces of Eoin Morgan's puzzle which he hopes will show England holding both limited-overs titles appears to be coming together.

Yet it would be fair to observe that the Irishman is not fully convinced by his side's chances of adding to their trophy cabinet in seven months time.

Ahead of a five-match T20 series against India which is exclusively being held in Ahmedabad, Morgan and Kohli exchanged compliments and identified each other as favourites for the title.

But there was more conviction from Morgan, who feels there remains areas of concern among his cohorts ahead of the tournament which heads to India first after the event in Australia was pushed into 2022.

The primary worry regards his side's ability to play spin ably. The trials endured by the Test team highlighted just how little England players - despite many of them having regular IPL contracts - are exposed to the fast turning ball. How they adapt over the coming months could be key and Morgan hopes practice will make perfect.

"When you break our game down naturally as English players coming through it is probably our biggest learning point that we need to improve on," he explained. "We don't get exposed a lot to the extravagantly turning ball, yes it turns but not extravagantly.

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"The more the guys play under it the better they become at managing it. So, we need to be exposed to it because come the World Cup there is a chance we might play.

"India is a huge country with different conditions at every ground. In 2016 (World Cup), we didn't play on wickets that turned extravagantly, in Nagpur the ball did turn significantly, and a couple of teams became unstuck around it. It is better to go through this experience now than during the World Cup."

Despite having new ball options which include Jofra Archer, Sam Curran, Chris Jordan and Mark Wood, England continue to struggle for breakthroughs at the start of an opponents' innings.

They have taken just 11 wickets in the last 72 powerplay overs (there was an improvement against Australia and in South Africa) but that return requires further work.

"We'd love to take wickets early," added Morgan. "In the long-term results of the game it hasn't cost us a great deal, the wickets that we've played on have been pretty good. 

"Yes, we do strive to take wickets but we just haven't managed to do that so we'll strive to both change strategy in things that we're doing and also get better at being more threatening. There are a couple of things (we're considering), but we'll have to wait."

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