The Surfer

Morgan's chance puts pressure on Trott

With Jonathan Trott having been dismantled mentally in South Africa during the winter and Ravi Bopara having suffered similarly against the Australians last summer, England are seeking a middle-order batsman of pedigree to sit alongside Kevin

With Jonathan Trott having been dismantled mentally in South Africa during the winter and Ravi Bopara having suffered similarly against the Australians last summer, England are seeking a middle-order batsman of pedigree to sit alongside Kevin Pietersen, Paul Collingwood and Ian Bell, writes Mike Selvey in the Guardian.

Loading ...

The choice of Morgan is a tricky one. Here is a player whose experience over almost 50 first-class games for Middlesex, in which he has scored just six hundreds, at what these days is a modest average of around 36, hardly offers obvious credentials for Test cricket. Little of his cricket upbringing has been directed at anything other than one-day cricket, in which he has become one of the world's rising stars ... Flower can be certain of one thing – Morgan's ability to rise to the occasion.

Test match and Twenty20 cricket are as different as chalk and cheddar, but in Eoin Morgan the selectors believe they have seen depths of talent and levels of composure that will enable him to transfer easily success from one form of the game to another, says Mike Atherton in the Times.

England

George Binoy is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo