Cricket round-up: Eoin Morgan becomes doubt for World Cup

Eoin Morgan

After the high of an Ashes series victory, England face up to the impending World Cup with both a demoralising one-day international series defeat to Australia and a rapidly depleted pool of players to call from.

The name at the top of that injury list is Eoin Morgan, who missed the 57-run defeat in Perth (which meant that Australia won the series 6-1), with a broken finger. He was the sixth member of the one-day squad to make an early return to England with an injury problem which has been assessed as a fracture to the middle finger in his left hand.

Andrew Strauss, the England captain, admitted that the injury casts doubt on whether Morgan wil be fit in time for England’s first World Cup game, against the Netherlands on February 22nd. “He's going to see a specialist tomorrow to decide what the best course of action is to remedy that situation," Strauss said to ecb.co.uk. “There's obviously got be a chance that he's not going to feature. We're going to have to think through - at what stage is the cut-off point the guy needs to be replaced.

“We're pretty confident the other guys are going to be fit, but Eoin Morgan we are not sure of at this stage. It's a big loss for us potentially. He is particularly important in those conditions as well, being able to clear the ropes in the manner that he does.

“Hopefully there will be an opportunity for him to play. If he isn't available someone is going to have to fill those shoes,” Strauss added.

Sri Lanka’s preparations are going rather more smoothly and a half-century by Kumar Sangakkara and three wickets from the bowling of Thisara Perera helped them to a 26-run victory over the West Indies in the third one-day international in Colombo and win the three-match series 2-0.

Paul Wheeler

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