‘The beauty of franchise cricket’

• Morgan likens Bairstow-Warner relationship to Ronaldo-Rooney

Eoin Morgan has credited franchise cricket for breaking down barriers after seeing the seemingly close relationship between David Warner and Jonny Bairstow.

Warner, the Australia opener, and Bairstow, the England top-order batsman, have had their issues in the past, most notably in 2017-18 during England’s Ashes tour of Australia, a series riddled with sledging and off-field controversies that crossed the line. 

However, the pair have now struck a superb partnership at the top of the order for Sunrisers Hyderabad in IPL 2019. In the match against Royal Challengers Bangalore, the duo scored centuries in a record opening partnership of 185 runs. All this just months before they will likely turn out as opponents in the Ashes.

Morgan, the England limited-overs captain, wasn’t surprised by their association, and drew parallels with the incident in football between Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo, when in the 2006 World Cup clash between England and Portugal, Ronaldo played his part in getting Rooney sent off, just weeks before they were to reunite as teammates at Manchester United.

“The two of them are teammates for the moment but that is the beauty of playing franchise cricket,” Morgan told ESPNCricinfo. “You do get to rub shoulders with guys you never thought you’d play with.

“Thinking about it since in different sports, in football it happens all the time. Compare Portugal’s game where Ronaldo got Wayne Rooney sent off, and had to go back and play for Manchester United two weeks later. It’s trickier circumstances, but I’m sure Jonny is learning a huge amount from other guys that he’s rubbing shoulders with.”

In fact, Morgan believes all England players – a record 11 feature in the ongoing edition of the IPL – will stand to benefit from playing the tournament, and he cited the example of Sam Curran, the 20-year-old, who was dropped after his first IPL game, but came back to take four wickets in a match-winning performance.

There’s only so much the England players can do at the IPL to push their chances of selection at the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2019, but a real standout performance can still get them on the radar, Morgan said. “Over the last two years, we’ve evolved past a squad of 15 players who have contributed to the team at any stage, and moved to 17, 18, 19 players,” he said. “It’s never been easy to announce a squad of 15 and that will be the case for the summer. We’ve always said that guys who contribute at that time will be selected, and I don’t think anything will change. “There’s a lot of cricket to be played with Pakistan and Ireland, and I think there will be opportunities for guys who aren’t necessarily nailed down in the team to go and prove that they are in good form, and that they offer a lot to the team for that World Cup.”