England’s World Cup-winning captain Eoin Morgan was excited for IPL 2020, before the coronavirus pandemic paused every sporting action in the world. The 13 edition of the cash-rich league would have marked Morgan’s return to Kolkata Knight Riders.
“I was extremely excited, particularly going back to Kolkata. I had three seasons there that I thoroughly enjoyed before. They’re one of the best run teams, everything from the owners [which includes Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan] right down to the young players. I like the planning, and when you look at the IPL as a whole since the very beginning, they are one of three teams that has had the most success. Probably, the other two teams are Mumbai and Chennai you know. They really do back the players, and they have done so from the very beginning,” the 33-year-old was quoted as saying by kkr.in .
Morgan met KKR captain Dinesh Karthik in Mumbai. “I've spoken to DK a lot and I met up with him just before Christmas when I was out in Mumbai. He’s a fantastic guy, a great cricketer and I'm looking forward to helping him in whatever way I can. While I’m here to help, I also want to learn as much as I can from him.
“There are a lot of dynamics about being a captain when you’re playing in India that I don’t know about, I’ll be picking his brain the whole time. I’ll naturally be myself and try to give as much as I can just like the rest of the international players. But it's going to be fascinating to see how and when we get to play and how the competition lines up. Because everybody is going to come out of isolation extremely excited, rearing to go, batting, bowling, fielding the whole lot,” he said.
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Morgan was part of the KKR squad that won the IPL in 2012. “I remember Eden Gardens being full, all the pictures of the boys going around and doing lap of honour; just to see the pure joy on peoples’ faces about how proud they were to support a team was amazing,” said Morgan, who is also a good friend of Brendon McCullum, former New Zealand captain and now, the head coach at KKR. "He emceed my wedding. For people who know him well, he’s a very funny guy. Again, we like very similar things so when it comes to humour, we obviously laugh a lot when we’re in each other's company. He played an integral part at our wedding. We were very lucky that he was able to do it and he did a smashing job. A bit like everything he does in life, he does it extremely well and it was great to have. I suppose it makes that move to KKR all the more sweet when he’s head coach."
Lockdown tales
Morgan has taken to Netflix, a bit of cooking and spending time with his newborn.
"We’ve actually been busy with the baby a lot. But apart from that, I've watched a little bit of Netflix. I've just finished the TV series ‘Narcos’ based on Pablo Escobar, which I thought was good. Very graphic, but very good! And I've just started re-watching The Sopranos. It's one of my favourite TV series of all time so it was a nice excuse to go back and watch it. I've also been reading a couple of books, and I do a little bit of workout. But I think people are becoming obsessed with exercise."
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