England to stick with struggling Carberry

Cricket365
September 13, 2013

England stand-in ODI captain Eoin Morgan says they will be sticking with opening batsman Michael Carberry for the rest of the series, despite his failure to score many runs in his first three games for England.

Carberry made his debut against Ireland last week, but could only make 10 runs and dropped two catches. The first ODI against Australia was abandoned, but the second and third (also later abandoned) saw Carberry make just five runs in total.

But Morgan says they will not drop the Hampshire veteran yet, and will give him two more chances in the remaining ODIs of the series, which Australia lead one-nil.

Morgan insisted: "He's had a bit of a hard time of it to be honest. But he's experienced enough to know that it's swings and roundabouts. We've 100 percent backing for 'Carbs' at the moment, because we've seen how hard he works and the success he's had.

"We'd like to see that over the next two games. But if not he's always got his basics to fall back on – and go again."

Morgan was then asked about the run out in the third ODI, where Carberry was left stranded by Kevin Pietersen, who had called for the run. Morgan said there was no bad feelings between the players, and run outs were, by their nature, miscommunications.

He said: "I don't think it's anybody's fault. There's always miscommunication in a run-out, and I think we can leave it up to those two to sort things out. They're fine. They've known each for years and played at Hampshire together."

When asked how Carberry was feeling, Morgan said: "He's fine. Obviously he'd have liked to get runs. He's quite anxious to get stuck in, and prove the type of player he is. But you're going to be disappointed with a couple of low scores."

The skipper went on to say that despite the number of new players in the side, they were looking to win the remaining two matches convincingly, and were not considering the series a training run or experiment.

Morgan added: "Obviously, it's a good opportunity to blood young players, but we're out to win. For us, it's now a semi-final and final – that's the way we're going to treat it. We need to come out and up our game and our intensity.

"There's not a lot of motivation the guys need. We haven't played very much cricket, and the guys are keen to get on the park and do well. There is a lot of energy flowing around."